Good Shepherd
by thestylus01
Summary: A suspicious death draws the team into the middle of a complicated case. A Jibbs AU.
1. Chapter 1

Good Shepherd

by the stylus

* * *

A Jibbs AU, inspired by the lovely ladies at jibbsloversunited. With a special thanks to elflordsmistress for the encouragement. It's my first venture into the land of NCIS, so thoughts are most welcome.

* * *

"McGeever, are you making a bomb under there?" Tony could see only the soles of McGee's shoes protruding from the edge of Gibbs's desk. He craned his head a little further to the right, but was rewarded with nothing more than a better view of McGee's socks.

"No, Tony, I'm rewiring Gibbs's secure DSL line. There was a hiccup last week in the network and—"

"It'll have to wait." Gibbs came striding into the bullpen, coffee in one hand and a thumb drive in the other. "While you're down there, McGee, plug this thing in."

"Uh, boss, it doesn't—"

"Whatever, McGee. Just make the stuff on the little thing show up on the big thing."

"On it, Boss."

"Where's David?"

Tony sat forward in his chair. Their new Mossad liaison was a much more interesting puzzle than the Probie, beautiful and surly simultaneously. And much easier to get in trouble. "She's running late, Boss."

As if on cue, the elevator sounded and David stepped out. Tony wasn't sure if she looked puzzled or furious.

"I am sorry, Agent Gibbs. There was some… difficulty about my clearance at the gate. It will not happen again."

Gibbs cast her a long look. "Does the marine in question still have the use of all of his limbs?"

"He will."

"Fine." Gibbs turned back to the plasma, which now displayed the unsmiling face of a Marine. "Captain David Klee, head of stores in Anbar Province for the last year. Recently, one of his subordinates reported suspicious discrepancies in the accounts. Detonator cord, in particular, which is issued to every marine on the ground. Unused cord is supposed to be returned at the end of a tour of duty, but the accounts don't seem to reflect the amounts individuals report they have returned."

Tony groaned. "Boss, please tell me there's a dead body in this story somewhere."

"Sorry, DiNozzo. Just fifty boxes of files, which should be arriving on your desk in about an hour. Along with twenty marines from Klee's unit, which just shipped back Stateside."

"I do not think they will all fit on Tony's desk." Tony stared: David making a joke was unusual. Maybe a healthy breakfast and a little torture were the key to her good moods.

"Set up an interview schedule, David. List is on your desk. McGee, I want you to—"

"It'll have to wait." Director Morrow was leaning over the railing in front of MTAC. "Gibbs, my office. Hand the Klee investigation off to Brown's team."

Gibbs was already taking the stairs two at a time when Tony, with a grin, tossed the thumb drive to a disappointed-looking agent in the next set of cubicles.

Morrow met Gibbs on the top stair and ushered him into his office. "We have a situation."

"I gathered that, Director."

"A navy lieutenant has been found dead at the headquarters of Shepard Technologies." Morrow looked at him intently. Clearly there was something more to this than a dead sailor.

"Okay."

"ShepTech designs the most sophisticated weapons targeting systems currently in use by the US Armed Forces. Most of the details about what they do even I don't have a need to know. The dead lieutenant," he consulted the file in his hand, "Karen Habib, has been detailed there for the last seven months, testing a new surveillance drone. Jethro, I don't need to spell out for you how important it is that this investigation be quick and discreet—for their sake and ours."

"No, Tom. You don't." Morrow handed the file over.

"Good. Call me as soon as you know anything."

Gibbs was already moving, descending rapidly to the bullpen and heading for his desk. He paused only briefly to distract DiNozzo from his contemplation of David's lowered head. "Ow! Boss."

"Grab your gear. We have a dead sailor. DiNozzo, you drive," he said, tossing Tony the keys.

"Where are we going, Boss?" McGee was learning; he was already on feet.

"Shepard Technologies."

"No way!" He pulled up short. That was a tone he wasn't used to hearing in response to his announcements.

"Something you want to add, McGee?"

The young agent's eyes were alight. "No, Boss. Well, I mean—No. Nothing to add."

"Out with it, McGee. Sometime today."

"It's just that Jenny Shepard, the head of ShepTech, was kind of a legend when I was at MIT. She's amazing. She'd been there doing her Ph.D. when her dad died and she left to head up ShepTech. They used to make weapons, but when she took over they transitioned to guidance systems. Her first inertial navigation system was amazing—we studied it in a graduate-level physics class I took. It was so elegant, sophisticated. It used—"

"McGee. Anything to add that's relevant to the case?" Gibbs headed off what threatened to be an Abby-length spiel of which he would understand next to nothing.

"Um, no, Boss. Sorry, Boss. I mean, I'm not sorry, but—"

Gibbs started for the elevator, the others falling in behind him. As the doors closed, Tony's voice came from over his left shoulder. "Jenny, huh? McGiggle's got a cru-ush." It was going to be a very long morning.

* * *

The LEOs were clustered just inside the ShepTech lobby, looking uncomfortable. Behind them, a row of silent, dark-suited men formed a second line, effectively screening the gathered press from glimpsing anything as the door swung shut behind the NCIS team.

"Special Agent Gibbs?"

He nodded and one of the suits stepped forward. "I'm Stanley Adams, head of security for ShepTech. Please let me know if we can be of any assistance to you and your team."

The locals seemed perfectly content to let someone else take charge. Gibbs turned back to Stanley. "We'll need to see—"

"The body. Yes, sir. We've preserved the scene for your arrival. If you'll follow me." His team fell into step behind him. Two of Stanley's men were a step behind them. Stanley continued to narrate as they walked. "Melvin Driscoll, a member of Director Shepard's personal protection team, found the body this morning when he came in to sweep her office. He immediately recognized Lieutenant Habib and telephoned the office of the SecNav to report the incident. He then telephoned me and took action to secure the scene. Once I arrived, he isolated himself in a conference room. I assure you, no one but me and the Secretary himself has talked to him." The group came to a stop in front of a bank of elevators.

"David, DiNozzo. Take his statement. Then find McGee." They nodded. Wordlessly, one of Stanley's men peeled off to escort the NCIS agents, leading them into a waiting elevator.

Stanley spoke into a transmitter secured inside the sleeve of his jacket. "We're coming up." He and the other security guard escorted McGee and Gibbs into another elevator. When the doors closed, Stanley leaned forward and scanned his retina before pressing a button for the top floor. They were a disciplined bunch, Gibbs would give them that.

"Green Beret?" he asked, catching sight of the pin on Stanley's lapel.

"Three tours. You?"

"Marine."

"Bob here was a marine." Gibbs twisted around to look at Bob, a large, dark man who towered over McGee and was half again as wide. Bob, a man who didn't look like he smiled much, grinned broadly and nodded.

The elevator chimed, and the doors slid open to reveal a waiting room. At the far end, next to a set of solid double doors, a pretty woman sat at a desk, clearly trying to work while ignoring the three large men to her left. Those men, each as large as Bob, stood impassively in front of the doors. Though it didn't seem possible, they straightened upon seeing Stanley exit.

"Sir. The office is secure."

"Good work, Sanchez."

The guards parted to let Gibbs and McGee through. Only McGee wasn't following. Gibbs turned to find him studying one of the pieces of abstract art that decorated the anteroom, a brushed metal piece that looked sort of like an eight lying on its side.

"McGee!"

"Sorry, Boss. I was just—"

"I don't care."

"Right." McGee hurried to join him, pulling on gloves as he moved.

"Dust the door for prints."

"On it, Boss."

Once McGee had revealed that there were no prints to be found on the handles, Gibbs reached out to pull the doors open. They didn't budge.

"The doors require retinal and palm scans," It was the pretty woman from the desk who spoke.

"Agent Gibbs, this is Cynthia, the Director's assistant."

He shook the proffered hand. "Who has access to the office?"

"Director Shepard, Stanley, the members of the Director's personal security team, and myself can access the office alone. A few other individuals with high-level clearance have combination access—retina of one, palm of the other. I have a list printed out for you." She handed it across the desk. "I've also printed the access log for the last week. Our system records the identity of the entrant each time the door is opened."

"Who entered the office last night?"

He could hear the frustration in her voice. "That's just it. There's no recorded activity between the time Director Shepard left last night at 10pm and the time Melvin entered at 5.30am this morning."

In the meantime, Stanley had stepped to the scanner and the doors stood open. McGee lingered in the gap, gazing with something that resembled awe at the office beyond. "Coming?" Gibbs asked, stepping past him.

The naked body lay prone on a plush carpet. From the photo in her file Lt. Habib had been pretty in an athletic way, but now her brown hair hid her face, which was turned to face the huge, mahogany desk that dominated the room. Light from a wall of windows behind the desk streamed in, illuminating the pallor of the dead woman's skin. Gibbs understood immediately why even the macho soldiers who clearly composed the bulk of ShepTech's security looked somber.

"McGee, sketch and photograph. Stanley, I need to see Director Shepard."

* * *

End 1

* * *

All characters are the property of their creators. The author makes no profit from this work.


	2. Chapter 2

Good Shepherd pt.2

* * *

A throaty alto voice drifted out the open doors and down the hall toward the approaching men. "No. I understand. I assure you, we will not need to delay delivery."

Stanley nodded to the two security men who flanked the door and they returned the acknowledgement impassively. The woman on the phone in the elegantly appointed conference room was turned to the sweeping view of the Potomac offered by the wall of windows facing south. She continued to talk as they entered, seemingly oblivious to their presence, which gave Gibbs a chance to study her. Her dark, pinstriped pantsuit was tailored highlight a narrow waist and long legs, which were made even longer by impossible-looking heels. Her hair, a rich red, cascaded over her slim shoulders. He didn't know much about women's clothes, but he was savvy enough to realize the outfit probably would cost him a month's salary. In all, it wasn't exactly the image he'd been expecting after McGee's intellectual hero worship. With effort, he focused back on the one side of the conversation he could hear.

"I'll have the final numbers from the testing to you after lunch and we'll be prepared to sit down with your people on Wednesday to discuss the final delivery schedule. All right." She nodded faintly. "And you as well."

Hanging up the phone, she turned to face them, and for a moment Gibbs saw nothing but a bright, clear wash of green. By the time he drug his gaze from her eyes, she had already extended her hand. "Special Agent Gibbs. Sorry to keep you waiting, but your boss wanted to be sure this wouldn't disrupt our plans. I'm Jenny Shepard."

"Jethro Gibbs." Her grip was firm, and the eyes that skipped over his face were intelligent. On the surface she appeared untroubled by the morning's events, but she was standing just a bit too straight. "I need to ask you some questions, Director."

"Of course. And it's Jenny." She glanced over his shoulder. "Stanley, would you give us a minute, please?" The other man withdrew, pulling the conference room doors closed behind him.

"I assume you saw the body."

He nodded. "I wasn't aware that you had. I was under the impression from Stanley that no one but your security guard—"

"Melvin," she supplied.

"—Melvin entered the room."

She smiled wryly. "I stood just beyond the threshold."

He briefly wondered what kind of woman insisted on being allowed to see the dead woman splayed in her office before the sun was up. "What does it mean?"

Shepard sighed. "Too many things. I've been racking my brain all morning." She gestured for him to take a seat while she moved toward a sleek carafe set on a sideboard. "Coffee?"

"Always." Despite his desire to get on with the case, he found himself following her lead, taking a moment to savor the aroma and warmth of the beverage. And adding a passion for stoutly brewed Jamaican Blend to the list of things he knew about Jennifer Shepard.

"Tell me about the dead woman in your office."

"Well, you know she was a Navy liaison detailed here to test a new drone. She'd been here about four months. I didn't have much personal contact with her, but according to the people she worked with, she was well-liked. Smart, capable, and a good enough scientist not to be resented by the civilians. I talked with her supervisors this morning and none reported any problems. I have their names for you." She extracted a piece of paper from a leather portfolio and slid it across the table.

"So how did she end up dead in your office with 'The Good Shepard' painted on her torso in blood?" If the question was harsher than he'd intended, it wasn't because he was trying to drag his focus away from her mouth. Or the fact that she was currently several steps ahead of him in his investigation.

Shepard looked away briefly, then resolutely returned his gaze. "I wish I knew. Clearly, it might be a reference to me in some way. Good Shepherd—the spelling with the sheep—is also the name of the foundation I established."

"What does it do?"

"It's an NGO—a non-governmental organization—that organizes and funds de-mining work. Primarily, though not exclusively, in South-East Asia and Africa." She passed him another paper from the portfolio, this one a glossy brochure.

"Just de-mining?"

He didn't miss the tightness around her mouth. "ShepTech has a long history, and we've always been a good corporate citizen. But times have changed, and so has our role in the world. We're committed to the safety of everyone—not just Americans."

"You give that speech a lot?"

She laughed, surprised, and some of the tension went out of the air. "About six times a year. More, if there's a chance of raising more money for the foundation. And yes, Agent Gibbs, we _just_ do de-mining." The way she emphasized it made it clear how important this was to her.

"Okay. Received any threats lately?"

"You mean other than the dead body in my office?"

"Well, yeah."

"I don't think there has been anything of note. We build weapons targeting systems; we're not always the most popular kids on the block."

"Anything unusually personal?"

"You'll have to check with Stanley. He'll know better than I will."

"You always so cavalier about your safety?"

She gave him a long, level look. "No. I hire the best people and I trust them to do their jobs."

* * *

Twenty minutes later, she'd ignored at least four calls on her blackberry, and he decided that there wasn't much more she could tell him. At least, not yet. So they traded business cards—the ones with their cell phone numbers—and he headed off to round up his agents.

Stanley joined him in the elevator, a silent shadow. "Something on your mind?"

"I'm concerned for the Director's safety, sir."

"Call me Gibbs. Anything specific? Other than the dead body?" he added, picturing her smirk in his head.

"No, sir. She hasn't received any unusual personal threats lately. Other than the dead body. It's just—" He trailed off, obviously searching for a way to express what he was feeling in a way that an NCIS agent would understand.

"Your gut?" Gibbs supplied.

Stanley nodded, relieved. "That's it, sir. Just a gut feeling."

"You watch her six. We'll handle the rest."

* * *

End 2

* * *

All characters are the property of their creators. The author makes no profit from this work.


	3. Chapter 3

Good Shepherd

pt. 3

* * *

When he arrived back at the Director's office, Ducky was zipping closed the body bag. David and DiNozzo were busy and surprisingly quiet. McGee, on the other hand—

"Tony! Be careful! That's the actual Beuche Award from the National Academy of Engineers!"

"Okay, McGeekier-than-usual! I promise, I will handle this testament to your Wonder Woman's ability with the utmost care and concern."

"What have we got?"

Four heads snapped in his direction. "Boss."

"Jethro. Test was positive: the writing was definitely blood."

"Hers?"

"Abby will have to answer that question." Ducky wheeled the gurney out of the office.

"And the rest of you? Anything?"

McGee, camera in hand, answered from his position by an ornate cabinet near the far side of the office. "Files and desk are locked; neither appears to have been tampered with."

Ziva was standing to his left near a low glass table and brown leather couch. "We've lifted prints from the flat surfaces."

Tony held up the medal that had been the source of McGee's consternation and gestured with his chin to the others that were strewn across the otherwise neat surface of the huge mahogany desk. "Lots of awards and assorted hardware in the bottom of the cabinet—which, by the way, is probably Tibetan and definitely pre-1900. Also a bottle of Evan Williams Single Barrel. Much better than that swill you drink, Boss. No personal photos in the office. She's probably a workaholic. But with very good and very expensive taste."

"Evidence, DiNozzo. That's what we pay you for. Not your amateur psychological speculation."

"Yes, Tony. And besides, there is a photo on the wall."

"That, Zee-vah, is a posed public photo. Not the same thing at all."

He knew what the bickering meant but had to ask. "Have any of you found anything that will tell us how a dead sailor ended up in the secure office of the Director of one of the US military's most important contractors?"

He swore he could hear all of their jaws click closed simultaneously.

* * *

The Director had made it very clear that would appreciate some progress on the case. As Gibbs descended the steps to the bullpen, he could feel Morrow's eyes, even through the closed office door. He hated being told how to do his job.

"DiNozzo—"

"Run background on all of the people who had access to Director Shepard's office. On it, Boss."

"McGee—"

"Figure out how someone not on the list could have gotten a body into Director Shepard's office. Got it."

"David—"

"I will begin to look into the Lieutenant: residence, friends, movements for the last 48 hours."

Well. He did like it when he didn't have to tell him team how to do their jobs.

* * *

The volume of the music was, as usual, deafening. Either he was getting more used to it, however, or this band was a new one, because he thought he could make out actual instruments playing.

"Whatcha got for me, Abs?"

"As yet, O Almost-Omniscient One? Not much at all."

"Define not much at all."

"Well, there's much. And then there's a little less than much. And then there's very much less than much—"

"Abs."

"And then there's what we have now. Which is not much at all. I do know that the blood used to write on Lieutenant Habib's body was not Lieutenant Habib's. Blood types didn't match. I'm running the DNA now, but it'll be at least another hour before I have anything.

"I'm also running the fingerprints Ziva and Tony lifted. So far, nothing out of the ordinary and no big surprises, although it's like a Who's Who of who's important in there." She reached out to hit a few keys on her computer and faces began to pop up on the plasma at the front of the room. "SecNav; SecDef; the heads of the other branches of the armed forces; the Secretary of State. That is one seriously well-connected coffee table, Gibbs. And, of course, Jennifer Shepard, ShepTech's Director. Whoa."

"What?"

"Gibbs, she is seriously HOT. And a redhead."

"Abby." Sometimes working in a close-knit environment had its drawbacks. "I will be back in an hour with a Caf-Pow for you. Have something more than not much at all for me."

He didn't tell Abby that the file photo barely did Jenny Shepard justice.

* * *

When he walked back into the bullpen, DiNozzo and David were glaring at each other across the space between their desks. He decided that he definitely didn't want to know why.

"McGee?"

"I'm working on the security logs, but I'm waiting on ShepTech to grant me full access to their system."

"Work faster."

"Boss." McGee popped up from behind his desk. "While I wait, I've been looking into the NGO. Good Shepherd." He brought the logo up on the screen, a shepherd's crook superimposed over something spiky that looked a lot like the pressure trigger for an anti-personnel mine.

"Jenny—ah, Director Shepard established the foundation ten years ago, just after she took over as the head of ShepTech. She put in the first seven million, which we've traced back to an inheritance from her father's estate, and has raised over twenty million more. It's now the largest humanitarian de-mining operation in the world. They do everything: train, equip, and clear."

"What's that say?" The outer rim of the seal was written in a language he couldn't read.

"It's Latin."

"DiNozzo?"

"Catholic school, Boss. Uniforms. Nuns. And Latin."

"Well, make the nuns proud. Translate."

"Eam hoc mandatum accepi a Patre meo. Uh—" He emerged from behind his desk for a better view. "This command I accept to my father. No." DiNozzo began to mutter quietly to himself as the others looked on, fascinated. "Accepio, accipere, accepi—perfect tense… This command I received from my Father!"

"It is from your Bible, I think," Ziva said.

"Our Bible?" DiNozzo asked, receiving a glare in return.

"She's right, Boss." McGee had returned to his computer. "It's from the New Testament. John. The end of the parable of the Good Shepherd."

"The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." Ducky's voice drifted across the room and from his intonation, he had to be quoting something. "And it's not a parable, young Timothy, it is a pericope. The Book of John, where the pericope of the Good Shepherd is found, is commonly said to contain no parables; but a pericope in classical hermeneutics is—"

"You have something for us, Duck?"

"Yes, Jethro, I do. A cause of death. And a few other things besides."

"Well?"

"She was sedated with a common sleeping tablet, then strangled with something thin and flexible. A shoelace, a rope. Not a wire—it did not penetrate terribly deeply into the flesh."

"Raped?"

"No."

"Time of death?"

"My best estimate—and you understand that it is always only an estimate—is between midnight and 2am. The climate control of the building was on its overnight setting, which meant that the body's temperature fell…"

"Thanks, Duck." He turned to his team. "Start reviewing tape."

* * *

The next morning, after watching seemingly hundreds of hours of security tape from all over ShepTech, Tony had come to several conclusions. First, Director Shepard's secretary was definitely attractive. Second, the Director herself was clearly, as he'd predicted, a workaholic, since he'd watched ten straight hours of tape during which the door to her office never opened—not once. And third, people did _really_ strange things when they thought they were alone in elevators. He made a mental note to check the NCIS "conference room" for cameras.

He had also seen Lieutenant Habib reenter ShepTech headquarters from the parking garage at 11pm, very much alive. He had not, however, gained any insight into how her body had ended up inside the Director's office. The portion of the tape covering the suite for the hours in question remained stubbornly blank, and McGee and Abby had been unable to recover any data. So he'd called a campfire. It was not producing stellar results.

"It feels personal. A naked woman? The writing? Shepard have any enemies?"

"She builds weapons systems, DiNozzo."

"Technically, guidance systems _for _weapons systems, Ziva." Tony rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "So she has enemies."

"But why her?"

"Maybe it wasn't personal," McGee suggested. "Industrial espionage? Sabotage? Or maybe they're in the market for something."

"There are many corporations building more destructive weapons, McGee. And if someone simply wanted armaments, they could procure those more easily on the black market."

The chime of the elevator broke up the meeting of the minds.

Tony was immediately on his feet, his eyes moving almost as fast as his mouth from the three inch heels up the impossibly long legs to her wide green eyes. "Can I help you, ma'am? Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo at your service."

"Close you mouth, McGee. You are capturing flies," Ziva hissed, nudging him with her elbow.

"Catching," he corrected absently, his eyes never leaving their visitor.

Jenny Shepard, trailed by Melvin and Stanley, returned Tony's frankly appreciative stare with a steady gaze. "Well, Very Special Agent DiNozzo, I am looking for Regularly Special Agent Gibbs. Is he around?"

"He will return shortly. In the meantime, are you sure there isn't anything I can help you with, Ms…?"

"Doctor Jennifer Shepard." McGee's supplied, finally snapping out of his trance. "Doctor Shepard, Timothy McGee. It's an honor to meet you. Really, it is."

She reached out to shake McGee's extended hand. "Thank you."

"We studied some of your designs when I was at MIT. The way you increased the heat capacity of the FT-135 heat sink to allow the increased processor speed on the Tomahawks was just brilliant. And the code—it was the most elegant thing I had ever seen."

Gibbs, approaching, was charmed to see her flush and duck her head at McGee's enthusiasm.

She leaned toward the younger agent and dropped her voice. "I'll let you in on a little secret, Agent McGee. Did they ever tell you what 'FT-135' stood for?" He shook his head. "We had a little dry erase board in the office, and we counted-- the one hundred and thirty-fifth time I said 'fuck this' proved to be the magic number. We solved the heat dissipation problem two minutes later."

Gibbs was smiling as he swung around the base of the stairs. "Director Shepard. Come to see how the other half lives?"

"Just thought I'd see how bad the coffee is." He smiled and waited. She sighed, and the levity vanished. "Actually, Stanley insisted that we pay you a visit. He is adamant that this requires a personal touch."

On cue, Stanley reached into the inner pocket of his overcoat and extracted a clear plastic bag containing a manila envelope. "This was delivered in today's mail," he said, passing it to Gibbs.

"What's it say?"

"Other than insulting my parentage, morals, and hairstyle? It makes several colorful and creative threats on my life."

"And?"

"Must there be an and?"

"Those two wouldn't have bundled you over here if there wasn't an and."

"And it does so with specific reference to the place and manner of Lieutenant Habib's death."

For the second time in ten minutes, the elevator chime broke the silence. "Gibbs."

"Tobias. Who called you?"

"I did," Shepard stated.

* * *

End 3

* * *

A/N: Thanks for all the lovely reviews. They've been very encouraging as I venture forth into a new fandom.

* * *

Disclaimers in pt. 1


	4. Chapter 4

Good Shepherd

pt. 4

* * *

He wasn't sure if he regretted missing the fireworks in Morrow's office or if he ought to be counting his lucky stars. "Abby?"

At the sound of McGee's voice, she raised her forehead from the lab bench and regarded him with a bleak stare. "McGee. We got nothing. Zip. Zero. Nada. Rien. Sifuri."

"Sifuri?"

"It's Swahili."

"Ah. Well, we now have something new to analyze." He passed her the letter.

That seemed to revive her somewhat. Either that, or she was working off of the fumes from the new Caf-Pow Gibbs had pressed into his other hand. "Right. I shall assemble the troops. Attention, men!" she ordered, spinning to take in her massed equipment. "We must discover useful information from this new evidence, thereby saving the life of the smokin' redhead and bringing a smile to the Bossman's face."

McGee settled down to wait.

* * *

Tony concentrated on blending into his chair. "Tense" didn't begin to do the atmosphere of the room justice. "Powder keg" came closer, and he didn't want to miss the point where someone applied a match.

Gibbs lounged against Morrow's conference table, appearing as displeased as he always did when jurisdictional disputes arose. Fornell had his lemon-sucking face on. And Morrow looked like a man who wished he'd stayed in bed. Only Shepard appeared impervious to the antagonism, but Tony was quickly deciding she would look like that with her leg caught in a bear trap.

Or his boss's cross-hairs. "And yet you didn't see fit to inform us of this earlier?"

"I have told you, Agent Gibbs. I informed your agency at the earliest possible time after clearing it with the FBI and the CIA."

"Well, I'm so glad you finally got permission from mommy." The sarcasm in his tone was biting.

"Agent Gibbs, that's enough," Morrow said firmly. "Agent Fornell, I've talked to your Director and the Director of the CIA. As of this moment, you're to read Agent Gibbs and his team in on the entire file of Operation Lodestone. Until we have solved Lieutenant Habib's murder, this is officially a joint investigation." Fornell nodded.

"DiNozzo, find McGee, David, Abby, and Ducky. Get 'em up to MTAC. Fornell and Doctor Shepard here are going to let us in on the little secret they've been keeping." Gibbs was practically sneering.

Tony risked a glance at Shepard as he left. Although her head was high, her hands were clenched so tightly on the arms of her chair that her knuckles were white.

* * *

The team had fled MTAC's oppressive atmosphere as soon as Morrow dismissed them. McGee had retreated to Abby's lab, Tony and Ziva to their desks. As Tony continued to work through the information generated by the background checks on ShepTech employees, he could feel Ziva's eyes on him. "What?" he finally snapped.

"I do not like her."

"This," DiNozzo corrected. "I don't like this. Used to suggest that a situation is unsatisfactory or suspicious."

"I did not misspeak. I do not like her."

"Why?" Gibbs asked.

"Her father was a traitor."

"So?" Tony asked.

"Do you not have a saying about an orange and a tree?"

"It's an apple. And it doesn't necessarily apply in this case. My old man was a bastard, too."

"And the jury's still out on you, DiNozzo," Gibbs commented as he passed them by, heading for the elevator. "Look into it, Ziva. But be discreet." Ziva turned back to her computer, a satisfied smile on her face.

* * *

"Duck."

"Jethro."

"Abby said she sent you the text of the letter."

"She did. I have been analyzing it. In the places where it deviates from the standard formula for such threats, it's really rather remarkable." He lifted a copy from his desk. "It's quite clear that whoever wrote this has two simultaneous—or perhaps I should say interrelated—goals. One is to destroy Dr. Shepard. It is not clear that he means this to be by her death, though I am certainly not ruling that out. The second goal is more opaque, but I believe he thinks that the good doctor has something that could be of benefit to him."

"Like what, Duck?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that. Do you see here and here," he pointed to passages in the missive, "where there is language that refers to taking, grasping?"

"Sure. He wants to take her life."

"Yes. Maybe. It may also be that he wants to take something else from her. It's hard to say, because the letter itself is full of contradictory impulses. On the one hand, this is clearly someone who wants to make a statement; like a terrorist, he wants to realize his goal through large, symbolic acts. On the other hand, his focus is personal. Terrorists generally do not mind very much who they kill, only how many."

"So he's more like an assassin."

"Yes! Precisely. I had not thought of it in quite that way, but it is a good paradigm."

"Doesn't make me feel much better about it."

"No," Ducky conceded.

"And her?"

Ducky regarded his old friend evenly, seeing tension roiling under the surface. "What about her?"

"How is she likely to respond?"

"Jethro, I haven't even been properly introduced to the woman. Just peremptorily summoned to MTAC and minimally briefed on the case file of her life while she watched. How can I possibly draw any conclusions?"

Gibbs just glared, and Ducky finally sighed. "She's driven, frightfully smart, used to being in charge and unaccustomed to failure. I suspect that she is used to confronting challenges head on and will chafe under perceived restrictions. She could be… unpredictable if she feels that things are not being accomplished. And I doubt she will be much troubled by rules. Even yours." There was no tactful way to tell Jethro that his brief observation of Jenny Shepard indicated that she was about as likely as he was to take orders if she believed she knew better.

"Not training her, Duck. Just want to solve this case."

Leaving, Gibbs couldn't see Ducky roll his eyes. "I don't think that is all you want, my friend."

* * *

In the interrogation room, Jenny Shepard was drumming the fingers of her left hand on the table. She studied the paper before her intently, occasionally marking on it. Tony and Ziva studied her through the one-way glass. When she had emerged from MTAC an hour after them, following Morrow and Fornell, Gibbs had sent them to escort her downstairs.

"Is any of that actual words?" Tony wondered.

"It appears to be some sort of series of equations. I do not know. I did not spend much time studying math."

"Me, either. Of course, if my math teacher had looked like that…"

"You would still have done no better."

"Yeah, but I would've enjoyed it a lot more."

"You are a prig."

"A pig. I am not. And besides, I know when things are off limits."

"What do you mean, off limits? I have looked into her background. She is heterosexual and unmarried."

"When you put it that way, it sounds so romantic," Tony teased. "But that's not the issue. She's a redhead," he stated, as though that was sufficient explanation.

"I do not understand."

"If you had bothered to look into other patterns, you'd know that the boss likes redheads. A lot."

He quieted as Gibbs entered the room. Jenny Shepard closed her portfolio and capped her pen before she looked up at him.

"Agent Gibbs. Am I suspect now?"

"What makes you think that?"

"Well, it did say 'interrogation room' on the door as I entered."

He took his seat and begin to peruse the papers in the folder he held but didn't respond.

"Ah, the old Gibbs silent treatment," DiNozzo whispered. "Works every time. Next thing you know, she'll be confessing all of her sins."

"Why are you whispering?" Ziva asked in her normal voice. "They cannot hear us."

Tony kept his voice low. "Don't want to interfere with the Boss's mojo."

"There does not appear to be much danger of that."

Shepard had her hands folded on top of the table and was watching Gibbs flip through his file with an expression of amusement on her face, but she didn't appear inclined to break the silence.

Finally, he did. "Is there anything else you'd like to add to Agent Fornell's briefing?"

"No."

"To our earlier conversation?"

"No."

"Let me get this straight. Yesterday morning, a Navy lieutenant who was working for your company turned dead up in your office. With your name written on her in blood. You were, at the time, assisting the FBI and the CIA in an undercover investigation related to an international arms dealer, but you didn't feel that it was necessary to mention this until nearly twenty-four hours had passed. Have I got it right so far?"

He paused, clearly expecting an answer. She nodded, though he hadn't looked up from the papers in front of him once.

"This morning, you receive a threatening letter, at which point you come running to NCIS for protection. At that point, you also decide it would be courteous to let us know about your dalliance in undercover work. Which, it turns out, came about only because your father spent the last fifteen years of his life betraying his country. So tell me, Jenny, are you playing secret agent out of guilt? Or is there something else you're not telling us?"

Tony sucked in a breath at the venom in Gibbs's tone, and even Ziva shifted uncomfortably. Shepard didn't flinch. If anything, her face had become increasingly blank as Gibbs spoke. The color had drained from her cheeks, making her green eyes blaze huge and hard in her face.

"Any other baseless accusations you want to level against me, Special Agent Gibbs? Child molestation, perhaps?"

"Any other questions you want to avoid answering, Doc-tor Shepard?" he volleyed, drawing out her title.

"I have been nothing but cooperative with this investigation. I have told you everything I know and given you complete access to my employees," she bit out. "I will continue to cooperate in the interest of discovering the identity of Lieutenant Habib's killer. But you will not rile me with your cheap parlor tricks and your insinuations. I know who my father was—and I live with it every day. But I am not him. And I would advise you, if you have any interest in determining who murdered a member of your service, to stop wasting your time and mine."

Tony had wondered, despite the sharp suits and the equations, how a female scientist would fare in the business world. Had, in fact, assumed that she probably had other people to do that sort of thing for her. He found himself revising his opinion. He glanced over at Ziva, who looked a little impressed, despite herself. And then he sighed. Gibbs in this kind of mood probably meant he'd be spending a second night in a row at the Navy yard.

"Is there anything else?"

"No."

"You know how to reach me."

Shepard left the room briskly, Gibbs hot on her heels. He stuck his head into the door of the observation room and growled, "Get back to work."

* * *

End 4

* * *

Disclaimers in pt. 1.


	5. Chapter 5

Good Shepherd

pt. 5

* * *

McGee and Abby had returned to her lab following the meeting to resume their interrupted analysis of the letter. Abby contemplated the text, which was displayed on the plasma at the front of her lab. "Feed you to the frogs? What does that mean, McGee? It sounds like something Ziva would say."

"Yeah, but in this case, I don't think it's just a case of mistaken idioms. Fornell said that the case centered on an arms dealer named La Grenouille."

"The Frog! Of course!" Her pigtails swung as she nodded. She turned to face him and sighed dramatically. "It's just so tragic and amazing."

"What is?"

"The whole story. I mean, picture it. Jenny Shepard is a beautiful, brilliant woman whose mother died tragically when she was young. She grew up idolizing her father, a successful businessman. Then he dies when she's off being a superstar in grad school--an apparent suicide-- and she returns home to take over the family business. Only to find that the father she worshiped has been murdered in cold blood by a dastardly arms dealer because this whole time—unbeknownst to everyone—he's been selling arms on the side to terrorist groups."

"Uh, Abby, I don't think—"

But she was on a roll. "And then, poor Jenny, still reeling from that revelation, is told by the FBI and the CIA that she has to cooperate with their attempts to bring down said dastardly arms dealer and his international network of vile henchmen if she wants to save her company. At the same time, she uses her scientific genius to transition the company to guidance systems, ensuring that the weapons that are used kill fewer innocent civilians. And because she can't bear to touch it, she uses the money that her father left her to fund an anti-landmine organization.

"Meanwhile, betrayed by the person she loved most deeply, she isolates herself from all intimate contact, throwing herself into her work, founding a charity to save others."

Well, that definitely hadn't been in Fornell's briefing. "Abby—"

"Okay, so the last part is based more on deductive reasoning."

"Abby, you've spent a total of, what, thirty minutes with the woman?"

"But, McGee, I can tell! Besides, she's resisting Gibbs's charm. And no normal woman can resist Gibbs's charm. She must have been deeply wounded."

"Right now, it's more like trying to deflect Gibbs's wrath, I think. He didn't take too well to not being told the whole story immediately." Which was an understatement. Gibbs had spent the part of the briefing when he was not studying the MTAC screen staring daggers at Jenny Shepard.

"That's just his way of showing affection."

"Remind me never to get too far into his good graces, then."

But Abby's earnestness did give him pause. When she told the story, imbuing it with her particular worldview, it did sound more terrible—more personal, somehow—than it had in Fornell's dry recitation in MTAC. Of course, during Fornell's presentation Shepard had been in the room, sitting impassively in the back row as the most sordid parts of her past were projected at several times lifesize.

The aforementioned Gibbs disrupted his train of thought by striding through the door of Abby's lab. Unusually, the classified nature of the case meant that the doors were locked and a passkey was needed to enter, forestalling the normal Gibbs stealth tactics.

"Got something for me, Abs?"

"Gibbs!" Abby's usual good mood was subdued by his stormy expression. "Blood on the Lieutenant wasn't hers. I don't know whose it was, though."

"We're running the evidence we collected from the letter, Boss. It's pretty clean, but not as clean as the crime scene."

"Prints?"

"Nope. But there is a mystery substance," Abby supplied.

"Mystery substance?"

"Major MassSpec is hard at work identifying it as we speak. The rest of it's a total bust, though. Common paper, ink, everything. And no DNA on the stamp. Whoever this is, he's not a licker."

"Call me when the Major's analysis is complete."

"Well, that was abrupt," Abby mused when he was gone. "He must have it bad."

McGee just shook his head.

* * *

Four hours later, the sun had set, Abby had run out of caffeinated beverages, and they were no closer to figuring out how or why Habib's body had ended up in Shepard's office. They'd gone back to the investigative work that the unexpected turn of events had disrupted, but old fashioned detecting was proving tedious and unrewarding. Gibbs was wound so tight that none of them even dared to breathe in his direction, and he appeared to be taking most of his aggression out on the keyboard of his computer, one index finger at a time.

McGee, having returned from Abby's lab, had spent the entire time at his desk, trying to coax any shred of data from the ShepTech systems that would cover the time surrounding the body dump. He'd had no success, and he wasn't going to have any in the future. The data was just gone, the victim of an impressively sophisticated combination of coding and cunning. When he'd tried to explain the situation to Gibbs, he'd gotten no further than his first sentence before the glassy stare and muscle at the side of his boss's jaw had indicated that he should shut up and find other work to do.

Tony banged his head lightly against the edge of his desk, hoping it would help him stay awake if nothing else.

"DiNozzo."

"Yeah, Boss."

"Only I get to hit you in the head. Not you."

"Yeah, Boss."

"Anything on the employees?"

"Not as such. All the scientists and support staff were cleared up to secret before they started work. Some have higher clearances—depends on what they do. They have to be recleared every five years. I've checked everyone who raised any red flags on their initial or follow-up check—nothing yet."

"Cleaning crew, that sort of thing?"

"All look above board. It's a company that staffs a lot of government buildings, contractors. Expensive, but they keep excellent records. No one working at ShepTech hired within the last ninety days; no outstanding warrants. I'm coming up empty-handed."

"Cast a wider net. Let's see if we can't use what Fornell told us to expand the search. Get with McGee and cross-check dates, locations, anything you can think of."

"Right."

"David. Our lieutenant?"

"Well-liked. Intelligent. Friendly, but not extremely social. She was last seen yesterday evening by several colleagues. They had a drink after work at a bar near the office on 31st street. All of them saw her leave between 1915 and 1930 hours following a single glass of merlot." Ziva consulted her notes. "No boyfriend, although she had gone on a few dates with a colleague at ShepTech, a Dr. Harlan Dryer. He spent last night playing a pick-up basketball game and then was home alone from 2200. I have arranged for us to interview him tomorrow at 0800."

"Okay. Go home, all of you. We'll pick back up tomorrow."

They moved quickly before he could change his mind, and as he watched them hustle to the elevator, Gibbs worked at ignoring the nagging feeling in his gut. He'd been unsettled all day following the encounter with Shepard, and he'd been nursing his anger as a way to avoid the other feelings she stirred up in him.

Yesterday, the professional calm she projected had almost hidden the real anxiety he could see below the surface, and that vulnerability had made him wanted to protect her. It hadn't hurt that he'd had a few moments to imagine her cheeks flushed and how that voice, which always seemed on the edge of breaking, would sound when a little breathless. And then today she'd shown up and thrown a monkey wrench into the works with her revelation about the undercover operation. He hated being kept in the dark.

His gut had been in knots since. But it was probably just due to the seven cups of coffee he'd had in place of both lunch and dinner.

* * *

The next morning, they all arrived early by unspoken consensus. Given the mood Gibbs had been in the day before, it was prudent to avoid irritating him by any means possible. Which explained why there were three cups of Jamaican Blend on Gibbs's desk when he appeared.

"Ziva. Learn anything from the potential suitor?"

"I do not believe he was involved. He seemed genuinely shocked at the lieutenant's death but not overly distraught. According to her friends, they did not know each other well. He confirmed that they had been on three dates over the course of two months. They had not yet slept together."

"Ouch. No kissing but lots of telling," DiNozzo commented.

Gibbs's phone rang. "Let's go," he said after hanging up. "Abby's got something for us."

"Gibbs!" Abby greeted effusively when they entered her lab. "Gibbs's team!"

"Good morning to you, too, Abs. Whatcha got?"

She picked up the remote to the plasma and brought up a chart. "Well, I left Major MassSpec and the boys to do their work overnight, and they have identified the mystery substance on the letter."

"And?" McGee finally asked. "What is it?"

"A mixture of lead, tin, silver, indium, and bismuth," she pronounced triumphantly, gesturing at the screen. "It's actually _two_ mystery substances, although it took me awhile to figure that out." Her announcement was met by confused silence.

"Well, that makes things a lot clearer. You've cracked the case!"

"It's solder, Tony."

"Solder? Like Jennifer Beals in Flashdance? Sparks, leotards, 'Maniac'?"

"That's welding," Abby corrected. "This is solder. Specifically, electronics solder. The first alloy is a mixture of lead and tin in very precise quantities." She brought up a second chart. "It's sixty-three percent tin and thirty-seven percent lead."

"Of course," McGee said as comprehension dawned. "That admixture is widely used in electronic soldering because it has a specific melting point, not a melting range."

"Right," Abby nodded. "But that's not the really interesting bit. The really interesting bit is the other mystery substance." A third graph appeared, showing relative weights of four elements. "It's a mixture of tin, indium, silver, and bismuth—also in very precise amounts." She turned and smiled triumphantly, then sighed when she realized that they still didn't understand.

"European Union directives require the elimination of lead in all electronics solder after July 1, 2006. But it's not easy to solder without lead. So companies have been working to develop lead-free alternatives. This one, which has some really interesting properties… that you're not interested in," she hurried on, catching Gibbs's glance, "was patented last year. By Shepard Technologies. They're the only people that use it. It had to be an inside job!"

Gibbs gave her a tight smile. "That's good work, Abs."

"Thanks, Boss-man."

"DiNozzo."

"Still nothing on the employees, Boss. Hey, McHal, since you can talk to the computers, do you think you can work your his magic so we can use some sort of… whaddya call it… algernon?"

"Algorithm," McGee supplied.

"Right, algorithm? That way we could cross-check dates and places from the clearance checks with places and times of You Know Who's travels according to the CIA records."

"Yeah, Tony. I think that's possible." McGee's fingers began to fly over Abby's keyboard.

"Incidentally," Tony mused, "it's very difficult to have a free flow of ideas when we can't mention the name of a central figure in the investigation in the bullpen. Maybe we need an alias for the alias. Frogs are kinda slimy. How about El Slimo?"

"Back to work, DiNozzo."

"Got it."

* * *

End 5

* * *

Disclaimers in pt. 1

* * *

A/N: Next chapter-- less case, more sparks. I promise.


	6. Chapter 6

Good Shepherd

pt. 6

* * *

The afternoon found them back at ShepTech's riverside headquarters. Tony and Ziva were working their way through the list of employees that McGee's algorithm had kicked out.

Gibbs headed back to the top floor. "Cynthia," he greeted Shepard's secretary.

She smiled at him and gestured for him to take a seat. "I'll let her know you're here."

He opted to stand, finding himself in front of the sculpture that had so intrigued McGee two days earlier. Abstract art wasn't really his thing, but he admired the fact that the artist had made the heavy brushed metal look light, almost weightless. Beyond it, the river glimmered in the waning autumn light.

"Agent Gibbs," she greeted and he turned around to find Jenny Shepard standing in the doorway of her office. "Please come in." Her voice gave away nothing of how she was feeling. When the doors closed behind them, she gestured toward a straight-backed chair. Still angry with him, then, since she wanted to keep the desk between them.

Almost unconsciously, his eyes traced the deep neckline of the dark blue blouse under her suit. It looked like silk, and he could feel his fingers itch slightly. The ruddy afternoon sun shone through the windows behind her desk, setting her long red hair alight. With effort, he returned to the business at hand.

"One of your employees sent the letter."

"So I guess we'll be skipping the pleasantries, then," she said wryly. "How do you know?"

He extended a printout of Abby's graph across the desk. "Do you recognize this?"

She leaned forward to take the paper, and he concentrated on keeping his eyes on her face and not letting them drift any lower. Pulling a pair of horn-rimmed glasses from her desk drawer, she studied the mass spec analysis. "I do. It's the chemical composition of an electronics solder we patented. It's a proprietary alloy."

"Did you invent it?"

She let out a genuine laugh, which transformed her whole face. "God, no. Chemical engineering is way out of my field of expertise. I recognize it because I had to spend so much time explaining its unique properties to our legal team for the patent application."

"We found traces of it on the letter. How would it get there?"

"Transferred from someone's hands, most likely. When the E.U. lead-free directives came down, we knew it was only a matter of time before the US imposed similar regulations, so we began to look for an all-purpose solder. We now make about sixty percent of our product completely lead-free. Makes our weapons less of a public health risk," she noted drily. "Any number of people here come into contact with this substance daily."

"I'll need a list." If what she said was true, it probably wouldn't help, but McGee could feed it into his algorithm as another data point.

"I'll have Cynthia compile one." She picked up the phone and spoke softly to her assistant. When she had finished, she looked back at him.

"Am I still a suspect, Agent Gibbs?"

"No one ever said you were."

"Really," she drawled. "You treat all of your favorite material witnesses with the same sort of courtesy?"

"I can't do my job if people aren't honest with me."

"Bullshit," she challenged. "That didn't have anything to do with Lieutenant Habib. You were pissed off because your sister agencies didn't read you in on Lodestone. And so you took it out on me."

He had the good grace to lower his gaze.

Her voice changed, became lighter. "You know, you could just apologize."

His eyes snapped back to hers. "Apologies are a sign of weakness," he recited.

She laughed again. "Oh, Jethro, if you believe that, I'm the one who's sorry. That's possibly the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."

He felt his hackles rise and gathered himself to defend the rules Franks had taught him. But there was no malice in the smile she gave him, and the anger drained away as quickly as it had come. The words were surprisingly easy to say. "All right, then. I'm sorry." And he found that he was. "I was… out of line."

"Yes, you were," she agreed. "I won't apologize for not telling you about Lodestone earlier, but I am sorry that it made you feel as though you couldn't trust me."

"The comments about your loyalties were a particularly low blow." He didn't know what it had been like for her to have that dirty laundry aired in front of a bunch of strangers, but he knew how he would have felt.

She glanced away, and the muscle in her jaw jumped. "Forget it," she waved the thought off, clearly unwilling to address it. "Want a drink?"

He glanced at his watch, saw that it was just five o'clock, and decided that it didn't really matter what the time was. "Sure."

She crossed to the cabinet DiNozzo had admired and removed a bottle that still had some fingerprint powder on it, pouring them both a glass. Taking her time and a few deep breaths.

He took the glass she extended him and watched her move toward the windows. "I love this view," she said. "In the morning, I can watch the herons that nest on Roosevelt Island."

"Did you get any sleep last night?" She looked at him sharply. "You look tired, Director. And if someone's really after you, you need to be at the top of your game."

"I'm fine. And I told you to call me Jenny."

He took a sip of his drink as he stood and crossed to stand beside her. "Don't know many women who drink bourbon."

"My father taught me to drink Scotch. Islays, mostly. After he died, it was… too bitter. I switched to bourbon." She was still looking at the Potomac, now almost swallowed in darkness.

Before he knew what he was doing, he had reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

"Jethro," she said quietly, a question in her tone.

"Jenny." It took everything in him to suppress the urge to skim his thumb along her cheekbone. He dropped his hand and stood, simply breathing in the spicy scent of her perfume.

His phone shrilled. The moment broken, she laughed ruefully and pulled back, taking a sip of her own drink.

"Gibbs. Say again, McGee. We'll be there shortly." He closed the phone. "McGee's found something. We have to get back."

She nodded. "You'll let me know?"

"I will."

"Jethro," she called just before he reached the door. "Don't forget to pick up the list from Cynthia."

He grinned. "Goodnight, Jenny."

* * *

End 6

* * *

Disclaimers in pt. 1


	7. Chapter 7

Good Shepherd

pt. 7

* * *

McGee's algorithm had turned up a French Canadian ShepTech employee whose passport records didn't quite stand up to close inspection and whose surname happened to match one listed in the CIA's Lodestone file. He also appeared on Cynthia's list. It wasn't much, but it was the most they had.

Jean-Francois Tanguay's terrible employee ID photo was now prominently displayed on the plasma. Gibbs studied the weak chin and the brown eyes, the unruly forelock of brown hair, as though the picture might reveal something.

"He is not answering his home or cell phones," Ziva reported.

"Talked to his supervisor, who wasn't thrilled about having his dinner interrupted. Tanguay hasn't shown up for work this week," Tony added. "But no one thought anything of it because he had scheduled the vacation time. Works on hardware, mostly. Limited access to anything sensitive."

"No activity on his credit cards for the last three days," McGee said, studying his monitor. "Couple of large cash withdrawals from his checking account, though. One in a branch bank; three from ATMs. All within the District but at different places: Penn Quarter, Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights, and Georgetown—the ATM closest to the ShepTech headquarters. Nothing on his cell, though."

"Well, at least that means he's still likely to be in the area," Tony mused.

"He's not finished." Gibbs stood and walked toward the monitor. "You two," he nodded to Tony and Ziva, "get over to his apartment." As they left, he looked around. The bullpen was empty at this hour on a Friday, free of prying ears. "McGee, tell me about the Tanguay who popped up in Lodestone."

"Henri Artaud Tanguay. I couldn't find any information on him other than what the CIA provided, which seemed a little weird. He was really just a stray note in a file: killed near the scene of a stakeout they were conducting. The murder was never solved."

"And the stakeout?"

"A bust. It was based on information Jenny Shepard provided. Because ShepTech outfits targeting systems for so much of our armed forces, she has a lot of information about the movement of weapons into and out of the US. The Agency and the FBI have had her working both sides for years.

"The FBI was supposed to be monitoring a shipment of weapons. They were in a warehouse in Virginia, and they had agents sitting on them to track the pick up, but they never saw anyone make the pick up and the weapons went missing."

"Embarrassing."

"Yeah. Anyway, if the computer hadn't caught the names, I doubt we'd even have noticed. There's nothing else helpful in the file. Abby's going over it right now, in case there's something I missed."

He spared a small smile for how fast McGee was learning. "Well, then, let's go pay her a visit, shall we?"

* * *

"Something is hinky, Gibbs. Uber hinky. This guy just… disappeared ten years ago. Then he showed up two years ago just long enough to die."

"What do you mean 'disappeared,' Abs?"

"I mean, he went totally off the grid. No credit cards, no driver's license, no bills, no nothing."

"Could we be missing something? Canada is a foreign country. Maybe we're not looking in the right places."

She gave him a withering look from under her bangs. "It's not _that_ foreign, Gibbs. I mean, you can see Detroit."

He snorted with laughter. "Okay. So unless he was in a survivalist camp eating moose for eight years…"

"He was using an alias," she confirmed, nodding. "Or at least carrying fake documents."

"Well, the CIA clearly figured out who he was. Abby, if I get you the fingerprints they have on file can you run them against INTERPOL's database going back ten years?"

"Wouldn't someone have already done that?"

"Never underestimate ability of federal agents to accept an easy answer. They may not have known they should be looking."

"Roger that, Agent Gibbs, sir," she confirmed, snapping off a salute. "I will await transmittal of the fingerprints for analysis."

* * *

Little did he know that requesting inter-agency cooperation from the CIA would be the high point of his evening.

"Gibbs! Gibbs!" Abby practically hurled herself toward his desk, cutting off Tona and Ziva as they exited the elevator. McGee trailed behind.

"One at a time," he held up a hand to forestall the onslaught.

"Me first!" Abby insisted. "Henri Tanguay was working for You Know Who."

"El Slimo," he heard Tony mutter.

"I mean, obviously arms dealers don't issue employee directories or W2s or anything, but we matched the fingerprints to an alias and McGee tracked his movements."

McGee joined in. "His travel matches almost perfectly with the CIA's record of shipments from one of the shell corporations he controls."

"Jean-Francois's brother was definitely working for him," Abby finished.

"And Jean-Francois definitely blames Jenny Shepard for Henri's death," Tony picked up the thread. "He wasn't home, but we had a quick peek around."

"I thought I heard a scream," Ziva said, smiling. She was adapting to US legal procedure quickly.

"We found this in plain sight." Tony held out an evidence bag. "Run of the mill stalker paraphernalia. Photos of Lieutenant Habib and records of her movement. Coupla drafts of that letter he sent Shepard."

"I can't believe that was the best he could do after revision," Abby mused.

"We also found Lieutenant Habib's purse, with her wallet and Navy ID." Ziva held out a second bag.

"He's got a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. He's a smart guy. If he left all this behind, he's not coming back to that apartment," McGee pointed out.

"There's more, Boss. He's also been tracking Jenny Shepard's movements."

Abby gasped.

Tony passed the material across. "Photos of her and her security, records of her movements. She works later than you do, incidentally."

Gibbs finally spoke. "You think he's going after her?"

After a long pause, Tony nodded. "I do. He wants revenge for his brother. And I think he wants Jenny Shepard to suffer."

Tony saw something cold and hard flicker across his boss's face.

And then Gibbs's phone rang.

* * *

End 7

* * *

Disclaimers in pt. 1


	8. Chapter 8

Good Shepherd

pt. 8

* * *

"Where are you? Hold your position. We'll be there." Gibbs hung up and passed a hand across his face. "Jenny Shepard has been taken. Her bodyguard is dead. Let's go."

For a brief moment, the whole team seem suspended; then they leapt to follow Gibbs into the elevator. Abby was left in the empty bullpen, staring worriedly after them. She'd seen the depth of emotion Gibbs was feeling, and it gave rise to an empty, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Find her and bring her home safe," she whispered to their retreating forms.

* * *

Tony kept his eyes squinched shut for most of the ride and his hands braced against the car's frame. The one time he'd peeked, Gibbs had been weaving in and out of traffic on 66 so quickly that the cars blurred, and he had immediately regretted the visual confirmation of his stomach's discomfort. He was just thankful he hadn't been in the truck with Ziva.

Talking has also been a mistake. "You okay, Boss?" he'd ventured as they left the Navy Yard.

"A woman is missing who has in her head the key to targeting half our military's weapons systems, DiNozzo. What do you think?" He'd stayed silent for the rest of the ride.

Although it was ten at night and they'd beaten the local LEOs, it wasn't hard to find the scene. ShepTech security had cordoned off the dark sedan and Stanley was pacing impatiently while giving orders over his radio. The screech of tires alerted him to NCIS's arrival.

"The scene is intact," Stanley said, his voice tight.

"What happened?" Gibbs demanded.

"Melvin was shot multiple times." Stanley gestured toward the body, still slumped in the driver's seat. "Whoever it was must have been waiting as they came out of the garage. A witness saw a man drag Director Shepard from the car into a waiting vehicle. Black or dark blue, Civic or Corolla. He wasn't sure."

"Was she injured?"

"Witness couldn't tell. There's blood in the backseat, but it could be Melvin's."

"David, DiNozzo, shoot and process the vehicle. McGee, you take my car. Get back to the lab and work with Abby. Find him," Gibbs bit out.

"Yes, Boss."

"Stanley, I want to talk to your witness."

Ziva took her camera from her backpack and moved to the front of the car. "Based on the windshield, it looks like at least five shots," she said, starting to snap.

Tony started from the open backseat door on the passenger side. "There's definitely blood back here." He photographed and sampled. They processed in silence, the only sounds the snap of the camera shutters and the murmur of the crowd.

Ziva moved to the body. "He took three shots. Two in the head. The one in the body is not a through-and-through. Probably low caliber—or the windshield diminished his firing power. That leaves at least two unaccounted for."

"There's a bullet in the floor. It's pretty bloody. Probably one of the headshots."

"There is another here in the front seat."

"Got one of the misses lodged in the cushions."

"The other?"

Tony tried to eyeball the trajectory from the holes in the windshield and estimate where the missing round would have ended up.

"Maybe it took a deflection." Neither mentioned the that most likely object to have deflected anything was no longer in the vehicle.

"That doesn't make sense. She would have ducked when the shooting started."

"Maybe she froze. It is not uncommon for those who are unused to such situations."

"She makes weapons, Ziva. She's not exactly unfamiliar with violence."

"But that is not the same. Those weapons work at a remove. This was… how do you say… up close and personal?"

Before Tony could applaud her proper use of the idiom, she spoke again. "Found it! It is in the passenger seat."

"So she wasn't hit, then. It must be Melvin's blood." Relief coursed through him.

"Tony." Ziva had moved around to the passenger side and was contemplating the open back door.

"What?" He clambered backwards out of the car to find Ziva staring at the back passenger seat window—and the sixth bullet hole in it. "Shit."

* * *

McGee's eyes were gritty and Abby's pigtails drooped, but their fingers never ceased moving. While they searched files and databases and waited for calls to be returned, she pressed him for information about the scene.

"Abby, I've never heard his voice like that before."

"Like what?"

"Cold, hard. I don't know how to describe it. Like he had swallowed a rock and was speaking around it."

She sighed. "It's because she means something to him. Gibbs is taking this one personally. And don't argue with me," she warned, seeing McGee about to protest. "You don't know Gibbs like I do."

"But you don't know Jenny Shepard at all," he countered.

"I was in the briefing."

"So? Abby, you…"

"I what, McGee?"

"Well, you have a tendency to idolize people." He wasn't entirely sure in this case whether it was Abby who needed reminding.

She glared briefly at him. "McGee. She's beautiful and smart and brave and not afraid of him at all. Gibbs needs someone like that. And she obviously needs someone looking out for her."

"You didn't see them after the briefing. According to Tony, Gibbs practically flayed her verbally in the interrogation room. Accused her of being a second-generation traitor."

Abby shook her head. "But you saw him today when he found out she was missing. I'm telling you, McGee—"

A chirp from the computer interrupted her.

"What have we got?"

The goth scanned the computer screen. "Call Gibbs. I know what he's driving."

* * *

Ziva was very good at waiting--her training had seen to that. It didn't mean she liked it, but it did mean that, unlike Tony, she could tamp down on her irritation. He, on the other hand, was leading her to contemplate the paperclips on her desk with some intensity. She closed her eyes and counted to ten in the first four languages that came to mind.

It didn't help. "If you do not stop that, I will break your fingers," she said with a pointed look at the end of the pen he was nervously tapping.

He paused for a second and then resumed. "I hate waiting."

"I have noticed."

"McGeek and Abby are processing the evidence from the scene. There's a BOLO out for the extremely common make and model of car Tanguay rented using his brother's false papers. Gibbs is briefing the Director. And us? We're just sitting here, waiting for something to happen."

"Perhaps you should attempt to help it happen." The comment wasn't exactly fair. They had both been following up any shred of a lead they could find. But they were in the space between actions that sometimes opened up in cases, and there was realistically very little they could do. The next move would come to them. She just hoped it was soon. Whatever her initial reservations about Jenny Shepard, Ziva had seen her boss's face at the mention of her disappearance; and it had been enough to convince her that getting this woman back was important.

Tony had gone back to scanning the papers they'd pulled from Tanguay's apartment, hoping that there was something they had missed the first time—some clue as to where he might be going. "Where did you go?" he mused aloud.

"What?"

He hadn't meant anyone to hear, but now that he had Ziva's attention, he posed the question again. "Where would you go, if you were Tanguay? Assume you have a hostage and that she's bleeding."

He could see her warming to the game. "All right. You have a gun and the hostage is wounded, so she'll be somewhat manageable. But you still have to drive and keep the gun on her. It will not be easy."

"So maybe you wouldn't want to have far to go. You'd hit her at work because you know her movements there, but also because wherever you're taking her is nearby. Assuming you meant to hurt her and that it wasn't an accident."

"It was no accident. You saw the placement of the shot," Ziva reminded him.

"So wherever you're going, it's not far. Not Georgetown proper—too many people out on the street at all hours, too great a risk of being seen." Tony thought for a minute. "So that leaves two possibilities, really. Foggy Bottom—right next door and there are plenty of anonymous condo buildings there. And just over the bridge into Arlington."

"He has been careful, organized. He will have planned ahead."

"So no leaving the car on the street, then."

Ziva nodded.

"I'm going to get the local LEOs on it," Tony decided. "Send them building to building to check the parking decks, apartments recently rented."

"If he has papers from his brother, he may have money, too."

"Right. So rentals in the name that match the vehicle or in cash." He was already dialing the police and regretting the headache that always came with an investigation that crossed jurisdictional boundaries.

After the flurry of activity, though, the stillness settled over them again and he could feel it weighing on him. "What do you think he's doing to her?" he asked quietly, regretting the words even as he heard himself speaking them.

Ziva gave him a hard look and didn't answer.

When Gibbs's hand connected with the back of his head, he was almost glad of the immediacy of the physical pain.

* * *

End 8

* * *

Disclaimers in pt. 1


	9. Chapter 9

Good Shepherd

pt. 9

* * *

When the call came, Gibbs was in the elevator before Tony could put the phone back in its cradle. At the nondescript glass and steel condo building just off of M street, they met the local LEOs in the parking deck. Stanley was there, too, though Tony didn't know how he'd found out.

"Car matches the description," DiNozzo confirmed.

The DC policewoman in charge of the scene had rousted the manager of the building from bed and now marched the cowed-looking man up to their team's huddle. She folded her arms across her chest. "Martin Radzeski. He manages the place. Says he rented an apartment last week off-book to a guy matching your suspect's description."

Gibbs gave the man a hard look that plainly demanded the entire story.

Radzeski thought about refusing but then glanced back at the officer standing behind him. "Tell the man," she instructed.

"We aren't allowed to rent places short-term, but I knew no one was going to be in that unit until January, 'cause they got it scheduled for a refit next month, and the guy was willing to pay cash."

Ziva held up a picture of Tanguay. "Is this the man?"

"Yeah, I think so," he answered.

"He give a name?" Tony asked

"Sure. On the paperwork. Don't remember what it was though."

Gibbs continued to glare at the man as his team conducted a hurried interview about the layout of the apartment and Tanguay's comings and goings. Every time Tony glanced at his boss, he gazed was fixed on Radzeski's face—unblinking, unmoving. The beads of sweat he could seen forming at the manager's hairline told him that he wasn't the only one who could feel the intensity.

Gibbs finally cut McGee off in the middle of a sentence with a murmured, "Let's go."

* * *

In his memory, the room was a thousand shades of red. Her hair, of course, hanging in her face and snarled down her back. Her blood, which seeped from her right shoulder and streaked down her bound arms, tracing the fine bones of her hand. The skin around the blossoming bruise on Tanguay's cheek. The skin across his own knuckles, split and throbbing but an afterthought.

They'd all stood, panting, for a moment as the adrenaline ebbed away. There hadn't been enough of a fight—only token resistance from Tanguay, really—and they were all unsettled, over-keyed to the situation. Ziva snapped the cuffs on much too tight and she and Tony frog-marched Tanguay out of the room, McGee trailing behind with a look of disgust on his face.

He was left alone with Jenny, the only sounds her labored breathing and the thrum of blood in his head. He remained motionless for a moment more then started, realizing that she was still bound to a straight-backed chair. He'd cut her free, studiously ignoring it as she flinched when he moved into her personal space and again when he'd pulled out his knife.

She hissed when the ropes were severed, though, and he realized that the change in tension on her shoulder must hurt like hell. He finally looked her in the face and could see from her wide eyes and clammy pallor that she was fighting off shock.

"Thank you," she whispered as he put his knife away and carefully peeled the duct tape from her mouth. He shook his head.

"God, Jethro-- I thought—" She looked away, blinking rapidly.

He touched her cheek, the only place he could be sure wouldn't hurt. "I'm here, Jen. We got him."

She leaned forward, resting her forehead against his chest as one of his hands came up to stroke her hair. "I'm here," he repeated, not sure which of them needed the reassurance more.

He felt Ducky's presence before the ME announced himself and was absurdly grateful that his old friend had beaten the paramedics to the scene—or out-argued them.

"Jethro," Ducky said gently, giving him plenty of time to ease her upright. "May I look Doctor Shepard over, please?" The ME had been infinitely gentle as he moved toward the woman in the chair, keeping his hands in sight at all time and engaging in the steady stream of banter he directed toward his all of patients. "Hello, Doctor Shepard. I don't know if you remember me, but I'm Donald Mallard. We met at NCIS, though I regret that the haste of the gathering and some rather tense feelings meant that we were not properly introduced."

Gibbs slipped toward the door, knowing she was in good hands and needing a moment to deal with the depth of his own feelings. Hitting Tanguay had helped—some—but he needed to look into the other man's eyes. Had a need to see what he'd find.

As he eased out, he could still hear Ducky's voice, soothing. "My friends call me Ducky, however, and I would very much hope that you'd consider yourself one. Young Agent McGee has told me a great deal about you…" He didn't need to look back to know that she'd be trying to smile.

* * *

End 9

* * *

Disclaimers in pt. 1

* * *

A/N: As always, thanks so much for your kind comments.


	10. Chapter 10

Good Shepherd

pt. 10

* * *

"How is she, Duck?" he asked several hours later when he made it to the hospital, having left his team to sit on a very uncommunicative Tanguay. The man had made it clear that he'd wanted Jenny Shepard to suffer but hadn't had much to add beyond repeated vituperation. As the sun flooded the hospital hallway, he spared a thought for his team, hoping they'd be smart enough to go home for the rest they desperately needed.

"She has already argued with the doctors about when she will be released." Ducky turned to face him, and he kept his gaze on the room beyond, allowing the scrutiny. "She is fairly banged up—the shot was clean but untreated for nearly seven hours." So that was all it had been. It had felt much longer. "She was shocky when we brought her in. Two broken ribs and a fairly extensive series of small cuts. He had a knife, Jethro." Ducky returned his gaze to the sleeping woman.

"I know." He'd seen her reaction when he pulled his.

"He must have toyed with her for some time. The last was the worst, a fairly deep gash from her clavicle." Ducky traced his hand down own his chest nearly to his navel, mimicking the path of the blade, and Gibbs gritted his teeth as the fingers passed over his pectoral muscle. "Fortunately, you arrived very close after, and I was able to control the bleeding quite quickly. It will scar," he said quietly.

The rage that broke over him left him breathless.

"You should go home, get some sleep. The doctor sedated her—perhaps out of self-preservation—and she'll be out for hours yet. They can ring you when she awakens."

He didn't move and knew Ducky didn't really expect it.

"Send them home when you get back to NCIS."

"At the very least sit down before you fall, Jethro. I do not want to have to treat two living beings in a single day."

He stood outside her room as Ducky spoke quietly to the nurses on duty, gathered his things, and slipped out into the noonday sun. He continued to stand there as the hospital traffic ebbed and flowed around him until a nurse finally came over and gently tapped him on the shoulder. "Sir?"

It was the first human contact he'd had since he'd held her earlier. Abby had tried to hug him when they returned with Tanguay in tow, but he'd warded her off, certain that he couldn't hold himself together if she touched him.

"Sir?" He turned toward her, a pretty young blonde who looked slightly concerned about the taciturn, unmoving stranger on her hallway. "If you're family, you can go in. Are you family?"

"No, I'm—" But he had no idea what he was, really, or exactly why he was here. He'd only known her for three days, after all. It was impossible that he could be in this far over his head.

"Oh, you're with her security?"

He nodded, grateful for the out. "Go ahead, then. Call me if you need anything." She smiled brightly.

He stepped inside the threshold, the movement waking Stanley, who'd been dozing with his large frame folded in an uncomfortable-looking chair. He relaxed when he saw who the visitor was. "Agent Gibbs."

"Ducky says she's going to be all right." It came out sounding more like a question than he might have wished.

"That's what the doc said." An awkward silence fell. If Stanley had been thinking any harder, Gibbs was pretty sure smoke would have come out of his ears. "Listen, Agent Gibbs, I know the Director trusts you. And I do. We screwed up—"

"There was nothing you could have done." Which, if not entirely true, was the kinder lie.

"I just wish…" Stanley fell silent, and Gibbs had nothing to offer him. He knew enough about guilt and grief to know the other man would have to walk through it on his own.

"Why don't you head out? I'll stay with her." Clearly torn, Stanley looked between his boss and Gibbs. "Go on—get some rest. You're no good to her if you're exhausted." The words echoed those he'd said to the woman in the bed only a day ago, and Gibbs had to close his eyes for a moment against the memory.

Stanley finally stood and nodded jerkily. "I'll send someone to relieve you in a few hours. If she wakes…" He cleared his throat. "When she wakes, will you call me?"

Gibbs nodded. When they were alone, he took a seat in the chair that was still warm from another body and finally had the chance to contemplate the figure in the bed. She was tiny: that was his first thought. The other times they'd been in a room together, he'd been caught in the eddies of her personality and—he admitted to himself—the lines and curves of her figure. He hadn't realized that without her impossible heels and the armor of her gaze, swaddled in the faded hospital gown, she would seem so fragile. He smiled a little, imaging her reaction to his description. Then he pulled the chair closer to the bed and, still keeping his eyes on her face, laid his head back.

* * *

He awoke to the feeling of being watched.

"Hi," he murmured. Pain shot across her face as she tried to sit up and he reached out to lay a hand on her arm. "Don't move, I'll get a doctor."

She reached across with her left hand and grabbed his wrist, holding him. "Stay." Her voice was raspy with disuse.

He nodded. "Water?"

"Please." She smiled as he carefully poured and bent the straw to the appropriate angle.

"I've had some experience," he defended.

"Thank you." He held the cup so that she could drink.

"Sip it slowly—otherwise unpleasant things happen."

"Had some experience with that, too?"

"Uh huh."

"Jethro—" He could see that she didn't know how to begin, or whether she should.

"It's all right, Jen," he said.

"No, it's not, dammit." She shifted, wincing again. "Can you give me a hand?"

"I can do better than that." He reached over to raise the head of the bed.

"Thanks." She adjusted the sling that strapped her right arm to her chest while he studied her closely. The edge of a bandage that he knew extended down her torso was just visible above the neckline of the gown.

It took him a moment to realize that she hadn't looked back up to meet his eyes. And another to recognize that he had no idea what to say. He was saved by a doctor who burst through the door.

"Ms. Shepard. I see we are awake."

"Doctor Shepard," Gibbs corrected. "What?" he asked, as she shot him a look. "You earned it."

"Excuse me, Doctor Shepard. Good to see you up, if not quite about."

"When I can go home?" With difficulty, Gibbs suppressed a smirk. He gave her no more than five minutes before she snapped in the face of the doctor's tone.

"Well, first I'm going to take a peek under the bandages, then we'll talk."

"How about you just bring me the forms to sign out AMA?"

"Jen. Let the doctor look you over."

She glared at him but sighed. "All right."

He slipped into the hall to give them some privacy and to keep his promise to Stanley.

When he returned, he walked into a standoff. The doctor was leaning over her, Jen had her good arm raised to ward him off, and their gazes were locked.

"I said no."

"Doctor Shepard, I appreciate your concerns, but I really think it would be best—"

"What's going on?" he asked, glancing between the two.

"I am trying," the doctor said slowly, "to explain to her that she will heal faster if she'll follow my recommendations. Including taking the prescribed pain medication."

"And I have made very clear to him that I don't want the opiates," she said firmly.

"Jen, you're in obvious pain." She was still deathly pale and her deliberate movements told him that her shoulder was hurting more than she let on. "Take the drugs."

"I don't want—" she looked at his face, back down at her shoulder, and bit off the sentence. "Fine."

"And you," Gibbs turned to face the smirking doctor, "won't ever try to force her to do anything again. Are we clear?" The smile faded.

"Uh, yes, sir."

"Now give her the meds and get out."

He injected a syringe into her IV port and practically scampered away.

"Honestly, Jethro," she commented, her words already starting to slur at the edges, "do you treat everyone like squabbling children?"

She looked like a sleepy child just then, fighting to stay awake as her eyes drooped. "Nope. Just the ones who act like it."

"You'll be here when I wake up?"

"I'll be here."

* * *

End 10

* * *

Disclaimers in pt. 1


	11. Chapter 11

Good Shepherd

pt. 11

* * *

He'd hated to break that promise, but when DiNozzo called, he'd had no choice. Fortunately, Stanley had been as good as his word, and he'd left Bob on guard. The big man had alternated between glowering at anyone who tried to enter and regarding his boss with such tenderness that Gibbs had given up trying to figure it out and settled for being glad he was regarded as one of the good guys. Otherwise, he suspected Bob would have no qualms about breaking every bone in his body if he so much as looked at her askance.

* * *

"He wants a deal," Ziva spat.

"Not gonna happen," Gibbs stated.

"Boss," McGee said softly, "I think you should hear him out."

He glared, but McGee didn't flinch—that, not anything they'd said, convinced him. "Fine. Get him into interrogation."

"Already done."

"DiNozzo, McGee, check with Abby. See how she's coming with the evidence from the scene." With a nod of his head, he motioned Ziva into the observation room. If he had to talk to Tanguay, he wanted someone as angry as he was behind the mirror.

* * *

"You left Gibbs _alone_ with him? Are you crazy?" Abby punctuated her question by shaking Tony lightly. "He's going to _kill _him. And then we'll have to find a way to make it look like an accident, only, of course, he'll be so angry that he won't think to stage the death unless--you said Ziva was there and she's probably got a lot of experience at this sort of thing—"

"Abby!" Tony was standing only an arm's length from her but nearly had to shout to get her attention. She abruptly stopped speaking, and stood breathing hard, staring at him with wide eyes. "He isn't going to kill him. He's going to want to kill him. But he won't."

She looked between him and McGee, suspicion dawning. "What do you know that I don't?"

McGee looked up from the evidence table. "This is bigger than Tanguay, Abby. We should have seen it. Someone told him about Lodestone—they had to. He's smart, but no way is he smart enough or connected enough to figure out that Jenny Shepard had anything to do with his brother's death."

"But who? Why?"

He shrugged. "That's what Gibbs is going to find out. Meanwhile--"

"Meanwhile we have to start back the beginning." Abby was already warming to the task and keying commands into her computer. "If Tanguay's just a pawn, we've been looking at this all wrong. So we need to--"

"Go back over all the evidence from his apartment," McGee finished.

Tony rubbed his forehead wearily. "If you two are going to do that weird nerd-speak thing, I'm going to leave you to it. McPsychic, pass me some creepy crap from Tanguay's apartment. I'll see if there are any bread crumbs we can follow with good old fashioned police work."

* * *

Gibbs pulled the door shut and leaned back against it. He was in the middle of a deep breath when Ziva emerged from observation. She came to stand quietly beside him.

"We will need to inform the other agencies," she said quietly. Implicitly answering the question about Tanguay's credibility that he hadn't asked.

"I'll brief Fornell. Talk to DiNozzo and McGee. Tell them what we know." He studied her. "And Ziva, when you've done that, go home. All of you." He cut off the protest he knew was coming. "We've all been up for forty-eight hours. And it's going to take time for the FBI and the CIA to get their acts together. Lodestone is blown—and that's not our biggest problem. We may also have an active cell in our backyard."

* * *

He actually did get five straight hours of sleep—and in his bed. He had anticipated seeing Tanguay's eyes in his dreams, because he had recognized the rage in them the moment he set foot in the interrogation room. The man's need for revenge had bled off of him, and Gibbs had almost physically recoiled at both the intensity of it and his own feeling of recognition. He wondered if he had been that transparent, if when he'd left for Mexico Franks could read on his face what he'd been about to do.

Instead, when his cell rang, he couldn't remember having dreamed at all. "Gibbs," he growled into the phone.

"Sorry to wake you, Jethro."

"You don't sound that sorry, Tobias."

"I'm working on my social graces. Anyway, we have a situation, and SecNav's insisting we keep your team in the loop."

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and wrestled one-handed with a pair of pants. "Uh huh."

"The Navy was scheduled to take delivery on a shipment of weapons from ShepTech today."

"Tobias—"

"The shipment's been hijacked."

"Shit."

"It's gotta be related to Tanguay. What did he tell you?"

"Everything he knows--which isn't much. He didn't know the name of the man who contacted him and never saw any faces. We're still processing the evidence from his place, but so far whoever they are, they're a lot more careful than Tanguay."

Fornell gave a long sigh and then turned and relayed the information to someone else. "Listen, Jethro, I know you don't like playing with others—"

"Just tell me what you need."

"There had to be someone on the inside, either at ShepTech or in the Navy. Can you work that end? You've turned that company inside out in the last few days. If there's anything there, you're in the best position to find it."

"I'll check in on the hour."

* * *

An hour and thirty minutes later, having left DiNozzo and David at the scene of the hijacking, he was standing by Jenny Shepard's hospital bed with two cups of coffee debating the best way to wake her.

"Mmmm. Is that for me?"

He wafted one cup in front of her nose and smiled as her eyes finally opened. "Can you keep a secret?"

"For coffee, I'll keep any secret you like." She raised the head of the bed and reached eagerly for the cup. "So, apart from feeding my vices, what brings you here, Agent Gibbs?"

"Jethro."

"No," she countered. "You're wearing your Agent Gibbs look. I should know."

He settled into the chair by her bed. "There've been some… developments."

She paused from her eager intake of caffeine and stared intently at him. "Developments?"

"ShepTech was scheduled to deliver some weapons to the Navy today."

"That's right. The first generation of our new inertial guidance system was scheduled to head to Norfolk today. I spoke to Brian, my deputy, and the Secretary yesterday and everything was on track." She sat forward and he felt a frisson of electricity as her green eyes locked on his. "Did something happen with the delivery?"

"You could say that. It's been hijacked."

"What? By whom?"

"We're trying to find that out. What are you doing?" She had thrown back the covers on the hospital bed and looked to be about to swing her legs over.

"We need to go." She levered herself up with her good hand. Alarmed, he reached out, and therefore he was already in position to catch her when her knees buckled.

"You're in no shape to go anywhere," he grunted. She weighed next to nothing, but trying to hold her up without putting pressure on her injured shoulder or torso was logistically difficult.

"Cut the crap," she snapped back. "My weapons are out there, in the hands of god knows who. I don't have time to lie around and be ill."

"You make it sound like you got the vapors, Jenny. I hardly think recovering from a gunshot wound is a mere inconvenience."

"You can help me or you can watch. Actually, no, you can't watch," she amended. "This gown doesn't close in the back. But either way, I have to get out of here now."

Her urgency convinced him. As much as he wanted to continue to protest, he wasn't her keeper and didn't think he'd win the argument, anyway. "I'll get the doctor. You'll have to sign out AMA."

"Thanks. Can I borrow your phone?"

He looked at her quizzically.

"Your people took mine into evidence."

"Sure," he said, leaving his cell on the bed as he moved toward the door. "Who are you calling?"

"The Chief of Naval Operations. And then his boss, the Secretary of the Navy. I'm going to find those weapons." She swayed slightly on her feet as she said it, but her voice didn't waiver.

"I'll bring the car around."

* * *

He was surprised but grateful to see that she had acceded to the standard hospital wheelchair requirement. She slipped into the car beside him while DiNozzo recounted their progress.

"Boss, Abby found a fingerprint on the documents from Tanguay's apartment that matches Abu'l Fida. He's on the watchlist, but there's no record of him entering the country, so we have no way of knowing where he is now—but we're working on it," he added, hurriedly, no doubt anticipating the next question. "McGee has tweaked his number-cruncher and we're looking for anything the computer kicks out, but so far nothing—"

"Hang on, DiNozzo." He glanced over at his companion, who was breathing shallowly.

"You okay?"

"Fine," she hissed through gritted teeth. "Even if I weren't doped up, I don't think my stomach and your driving exactly go well together."

"Is that Director Shepard, Boss? Tell her we're all thinking about her."

"DiNozzo. The weapons."

"Right. Ziva and I talked to Stanley. The Navy assumes responsibility for the weapons at the point of delivery, which was ShepTech headquarters. As you know, they let the shipment get out of the building and a few miles into Virginia before they hit it. Which means—"

"The inside job is likely on our end," Gibbs finished.

"Right. Ducky says the Senior Chief is critical but stable. He's not going to be telling us what happened anytime soon, though." Gibbs thought back to the scene, which had essentially just been three bloody bodies by the side of the road and one who had at least survived to the hospital.

"Anything else?"

"We're working on it." He could hear the gloom in DiNozzo's voice and knew that their investigation was unlikely to produce the results they needed. "The FBI is battening down the hatches at the ports and airfields." That wasn't going to help if they didn't intend to get the weapons out of the country, but he didn't need to point that out.

"Are you heading back, Boss?"

"No, we're going to the Pentagon." He looked across at his passenger, who confirmed their destination with a small nod. "Call me when you have something."

He hung up on DiNozzo's acknowledgment. Jenny didn't say anything, but he could feel her questions. He realized that he hadn't actually told her anything beyond the bare details.

"They hit the shipment after the transfer, about ten miles into Virginia. Killed three men, left one for dead. He may make it, but he isn't up to talking."

"And you don't know who they are?" Normally he would have bristled at such a comment, but he knew she wasn't accusing him or impugning his team.

"No. Tanguay never knew—"

"Wait. He's involved in this? What aren't you telling me, Jethro?" He heard the slight tremor in her voice that she was trying to suppress.

"There's no way Tanguay could have figured out your involvement with Lodestone. He was tipped off that you were connected to his brother's death. He couldn't identify the informant, but they told him all about the failed surveillance op."

"And you think they're responsible for hijacking the weapons. Have you considered that it could be a coincidence?"

"I don't believe in coincidences." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her smile at his blunt pronouncement.

"In this case, neither do I. You think him…" she paused, groping for a word, "attacking me was a diversion? So ShepTech's attention would be focused elsewhere?"

"And ours," he confirmed. "Whoever they are, they had to know that targeting you would spark the interest of the agencies running Lodestone."

"Super," she stated flatly. They hadn't talked at all about what had happened in the hours while she'd been Tanguay's captive, and they weren't going to have the chance just now, but he caught a glimpse of her left hand clenching into a fist.

* * *

He swung into the Pentagon by flashing his badge. It was clear someone knew they were coming because he was motioned through the restricted lanes and an officer in dress blues met them before he could kill the engine. "Who is that, Jenny?"

"The Vice Chief of Naval Operations. He's here to escort me through security. Your team also confiscated all my ID," she explained as she reached across herself to open the door with her free arm.

"Sir," an unsmiling Marine held up a hand as he exited. "I'm sorry, but you can't park here."

"But I—"

"Agent Gibbs?" The Under Secretary's hand was hovering over the small of Jenny Shepard's back and he gritted his teeth when he saw her stiffen as it brushed back of her jacket. "Thank you very much for bringing Director Shepard. We'll take good care of her."

She shot him an apologetic look.

"Let me guess. Need to know?" he ventured.

"Need to know," the other man confirmed.

He studied Jenny. She was paper-white and there were dark circles under her eyes. She held her body rigid, and he wondered whether her agreement to the painkillers had been a one-time thing. But she was wearing her arm strapped to her body over a grey suit and a green silk blouse, and she stood rock steady on the impossibly high heels she favored.

"Jethro," she said quietly, not quite meeting his eyes, "I have to make this right."

He slid back into the car, a look of relief that crossing the Marine's face, and turned for the Navy Yard.

* * *

End 11

* * *

Disclaimers in pt. 11

* * *

A/N: Sorry the updates have been slow. I'm traveling-- but I promise to be steady in my slowness.


	12. Chapter 12

Good Shepherd

pt. 12

* * *

His team was good, but they couldn't create information where none existed. And they couldn't shake out the entire Norfolk base in four hours. The sniping was intensifying, leading him to wonder if he'd have to start head-slapping all of them, instead of just DiNozzo.

"Gibbs," Morrow summoned from the balcony. He took the stairs two at a time and followed the Director into MTAC. SecNav was on the big screen, computer techs working frantically behind him.

"Agent Gibbs," he said without preamble, "we've located the weapons." He caught his breath as Jenny drifted into the picture, leaning over to speak softly into the ear of one of the technicians.

"What do you need from me, sir?" She turned at the sound of his voice and he wondered at the connection he felt when their eyes met, even across an electronic transmission.

"We're sending in a Marine Special Operations Team to complete the retrieval. I want your team there to handle the scene."

"Understood."

"Good hunting," the Secretary said, gesturing to end the transmission. Gibbs's last image was of Jenny's worried face.

As the image faded, Morrow turned to him. "You're too old to play the hero, Gibbs. Let the marines do their job. I expect you all back in one piece."

He figured Morrow didn't expect an acknowledgment and so didn't offer one. Instead, he addressed his team before he even hit the stairs.

"Grab your gear. Tactical, too."

* * *

"It is constricting," Ziva explained, gesturing in disgust at the bulletproof vest sitting next to her. "In a dangerous situation I would rather have my full range of motion than the minimal protection it offers."

"Wonder if you'll reconsider that decision when your insides look like hamburger," DiNozzo muttered.

"It is you who should be worried, Tony—"

"Wear the vest," Gibbs told her in a tone that brooked no argument. If they had to sit in the back of their truck much longer waiting for a sitrep, he was going to just knock their heads together.

Only McGee, monitoring the communications, was quiet. He was wrestling, Gibbs suspected, with his own doubts and nerves. None of them were immune. They didn't like leaving tasks to others, no matter how well-trained, particularly when their own lives hung in the balance. Gibbs had seen the estimates Jenny sent over of the blast zone that would result if the weapons were triggered. It didn't really matter how far away they parked.

"Did you ever see the movie SWAT, Ziva? I'm like the Colin Farrell character you're Michelle—"

"Boss." McGee cut in.

"Put it on speaker."

They listened to the radio chatter as the marines prepared to penetrate the building. As they went silent, the tension level in the truck rose. There was the sound of scuffling feet. A grunt. A noise that might or might not have been a knife penetrating a body. And then a cacophony of voices shouting and the sound of shots.

"On the floor! On the floor!"

"Hands where we can see them!"

There was shouting in another language and he shot a questioning look at Ziva.

"Arabic," she hissed. "Probably Saudi."

It was impossible to tell what was happening, though the chatter indicated that the marines were progressing through the building.

Finally, when even he could barely stand it, silence fell again. And then a single voice came across the radio, "Delta four to Delta team leader. Target is secure. Hostiles have been neutralized. I repeat, target is secure."

DiNozzo let out a whoop and slapped David on the back. McGee cracked a huge smile.

"Acknowledged, Delta four. Bravo zulu. Secure the hostiles until the NCIS team reaches you. Echo team, you are go to retrieve the target."

"Let's go pick 'em up," Gibbs told him team, opening the doors of the truck.

* * *

The interrogations took hours. They were careful and thorough, and while he gave a fleeting thought to Ziva's proposal of 'alternative techniques,' they did no more than talk with the five men who survived. It was not a dead end, but it felt like one. The cell had been well-organized, well-informed, and methodical. But the idea had come from people much higher up the food chain, and those people had been even more careful.

In MTAC, Fornell pressed him. "How can they not know anything? They coordinated the seizure of a top-secret shipment of Navy weaponry."

"They are lieutenants," Ziva spat. "Their superiors have ensured that they do not know enough to be useful to us."

"We'll turn 'em over for further questioning, but I don't think you're going to get anything else from them," Gibbs confirmed. "Whoever was running them is good. And they were true believers—didn't ask too many questions."

"What did they intend to do with the weaponry?" the Secretary asked.

He took a deep breath before answering. "They didn't know. Just had a delivery point." Which, if they were telling the truth, meant that they still didn't have the whole cell in custody. He stared pointedly at Fornell.

"Mr. Secretary, the Bureau will be taking over the investigation from here in conjunction with Homeland Security."

When the transmission ended, he met with Fornell in their conference room. "You're welcome to 'em."

"Thanks," Fornell responded with a wry grimace.

"I guess this means Lodestone is blown."

"Well and truly."

"So you'll be leaving Jenny Shepard alone, then?" He knew the question revealed far too much, but he was too tired to care.

"We'll have to extricate her, wrap up the loose ends, but after that, she's all yours—so to speak."

He reached out to hit the emergency switch and restart the elevator, but Fornell stopped him. "I've come to have great respect for her during the last ten years. Try not to be so much of a bastard with her."

"Or what, you'll hurt me?" he challenged, privately amused by the preview of Fornell dealing with Emily's dates.

Fornell smirked. "No. She will."

* * *

End 12

* * *

Disclaimers in pt. 1

* * *

A/N: Ever so slightly edited in accordance with the fine eye of Lattelady.


	13. Chapter 13

Good Shepherd

pt. 13

* * *

He wanted to call her. Had intended to, even. But by the time he got home, his body's need for sleep was so strong that he didn't even bother undressing before he fell into bed. When he awoke eight hours later, he felt as though his tongue was made of sandpaper and his limbs of lead.

A shower, a shave, and above all an extended encounter with his toothbrush made him feel human again. When he'd had half of his first cup of coffee, he took her card out of his wallet and picked up the phone.

She didn't answer her home phone or her direct line at the office, and Cynthia hadn't seen her—hadn't, in fact, even known that she'd checked herself out of the hospital. So he called Stanley.

"Agent Gibbs. Dr. Mallard didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"She collapsed at the Pentagon yesterday afternoon just after the retrieval of the weapons. They rushed her back to the hospital. She's going to be fine," he assured, "but they're keeping her for observation."

He called Ducky from the car. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"And good morning to you, too, Jethro. In answer to your question, I did attempt to tell you, but you were not answering your mobile or home phone. I left an answerphone message in both places."

"Probably slept through 'em. What happened?"

"An infection. Not uncommon after surgery. She spiked a high fever, which caused her collapse. She'll be perfectly all right in a few days, won't you dear?"

"Are you with her?"

"I am, and she says to tell you—well, tell him yourself."

"Hello, Jethro," she said, clearly having commandeered Ducky's phone. "I'm fine. Ducky has been keeping me company and regaling me with amusing anecdotes about your adventures together in Europe."

"Glad to hear it. Pass the phone back, will ya?"

"Yes, and I'll try not to take that request personally."

He informed Ducky of his arrival time at the hospital and sped on, relieved by the levity in her voice but unwilling to stop worrying until he could see her for himself.

* * *

Having learned the hard way with women to stick with what worked, he stopped for coffees before he headed to her room. He paused in the hall to watch her watch Ducky, who was in the middle of spinning yet another yarn, his arms waving to embellish the tale. His eyes traced the lines of the IV and the heart monitor but came back to settle on the gentle smile she turned on his friend.

"Jethro," she greeted as he stepped into the room. "You come bearing gifts."

Beyond her, he saw Ducky smiling approvingly and wondered at how quickly and thoroughly she'd managed to win over everyone around him.

"Jamaican Blend." He passed one cup over. "Duck, I brought you a tea."

"Why, thank you, Jethro. That is very kind. I was just regaling young Jennifer with the story of our arrest in Paris."

"You shouldn't have," he drawled.

"But he did," she said, smiling. "I love Paris, though I have to say that you've definitely seen parts of it that have thus far eluded me."

"Well, my dear, now that Jethro is here to save you from the onset of terminal boredom, I shall have to be getting back to the morgue. You will give me a ring sometime soon and take me up on my offer of dinner, won't you? Preferably on Mother's wrestling evening." Ducky patted her on the knee through the sheet and bustled around the room, collecting his things. "Oh, and if the doctors here give you any more trouble, do let me know."

"Thank you, Ducky. I really appreciate everything." She smiled at him as he headed out, pausing briefly to touch Jethro lightly on the arm.

While Ducky made his exit, he stood quietly, studying her. She allowed the scrutiny for several minutes before asking, "If you're staying, why don't you sit down?"

He sat. Then crossed his legs. Then uncrossed them.

She snickered softly. "Nothing to say?" But when he looked up her eyes were deadly serious.

He ran a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. "God, Jen, you scared me."

Her smile was gentle. "No one else calls me Jen. I think I like that."

"I'm serious. When I heard you had collapsed…"

"I'm fine," she said, emphasizing it.

"You're in the hospital. Again," he pointed out.

"Fair point. But I'm going to be fine. Yesterday, I had to go. I couldn't leave those weapons out there, and only I could find them."

He wasn't really supposed to ask, but the question must have been written all over his face. "Tracking system," she said cryptically. "One only I could activate and then only with authorization at the level of the Joint Chiefs. We always build one in."

"Ah."

"Trust me, I wasn't planning on collapsing in the Pentagon," she said, dryly. "Apparently I put on quite the show."

"I can imagine."

"Had everyone imaging all sorts of doomsday scenarios until they realized it was a simple infection. And then," she said, warming to the story, "they still wanted to run a million tests to make sure they hadn't missed something. I think the lawyers must have gotten to them. I was like a human pincushion for a few hours."

He grinned, "I'm sure you were very nice to all the doctors."

"Like hell," she growled. "Bloodsucking leeches, the lot of them."

"Well, you did give them some ammunition when your last escape didn't go so smoothly." She glared mockingly at him for a moment. "Drink your coffee," he instructed. They sipped in comfortable silence for awhile until she put her cup down and turned to him.

"Why are you here, Jethro?" she asked quietly.

He studied his clasped hands as he turned the question over, searching for the answer. Nothing concrete had passed between them. They had barely even touched. But every time he looked in her eyes, an electric current ran down his spine, and every time he was near her his fingers itched to trace her skin again.

"I don't know," he finally said.

"Good."

"Good?" He looked up at her.

"Yeah, good." She laughed lightly. "I don't know what we're doing, either. There's no right answer, Jethro. You didn't—" she trailed off, realization dawning. "You did think there was a right answer. Or at least you thought that I thought there was. Tobias told me you'd been married three times but—"

"Divorced," he corrected quietly.

"What?"

"Divorced three times."

She looked at him sharply but didn't say anything. He knew she wouldn't let the evasion slide.

"I was," he swallowed around the familiar lump in his throat, "widowed. Once."

"Oh, Jethro. I'm so sorry. Don't," she warned, shaking her head, as he went to open his mouth, "offer me your koan about apologies. I'm not apologizing; I'm empathizing. I know what it's like to lose someone close to you, and I wish more than I can say that you didn't."

He searched for any sign of pity or insincerity in her eyes, but they held only the same sort of anguish he saw in the mirror sometimes. It was too much emotion and he ducked his gaze to hide the tears that were forming. The story, the one he never told, spilled out of him before he gave it a second thought. "My wife… and my daughter were killed after witnessing a murder."

He heard her shift and felt her hand come to rest on the top of his downbent head. "I'm so sorry," she said again, and this time he didn't attempt to correct her.

They sat like that for a few minutes while he fought down the memories and she moved her hand slowly through his hair. Eventually his back began to protest and he sat up, drawing her hand down to drop a kiss in the palm.

"What happened to the murderer?" she asked.

"He got what was coming to him." He met her gaze. There were some things especially not worth apologizing for.

"At least one of them did," she said with a brittle smile and he realized that her abduction and the end of Lodestone had implications beyond the tactical.

He was still trying to find a tactful way to ask her if she wanted to talk about it when she cracked a huge yawn. "Sorry. Didn't get much sleep last night with all the bloodletting."

He stifled a smile, amused as she blinked sleepily. "Don't the meds knock you out?"

"Not really taking them."

"Why not?"

"Not really going to talk about that right now." Surprisingly, he didn't feel rebuffed by her refusal, even though he'd just spilled the secret he carried closest to his chest. "Jethro," she said gently, "I really appreciate you coming here."

"But?" He was already starting to get to his feet, unwilling to stick around for a polite rebuff. She grabbed his sleeve and dragged him back down.

"But nothing. Well, there is a but—but not the one you think." She paused, trying to straighten out her syntax. "What I mean is this. I like you. A great deal. And after a rather… rocky beginning, I think you might feel something similar. But I need to be able to stand on my own two feet—literally—before we jump into anything."

He didn't know where this was going, but she hadn't quite dismissed him—yet.

"I'm going to be here for the next two days, despite my deepest wishes to the contrary. And I'm sure you have a million loose ends to tie up. But when I get out of here—and this time, I'm not using the damn wheelchair—how would you feel if I gave you a call? And maybe asked you to take me out to dinner?" Her face was hopeful but a little shuttered. She was clearly uncertain about how he'd take her proposal.

"I'd like that very much," he said. He understood better than almost anyone needing time to rebuild a few walls. They'd both been more vulnerable than they were used to in each other's presence. He stood, slowly this time, and leaned over to press his lips to her cheek. For a moment, neither of them moved, but then he drew back.

"Get some sleep, Jen." And then, because he couldn't let her have the last word on setting the tone, he added, "you'll need it."

She laughed. "Oh, Jethro, you have no idea."

She was still chuckling as he stepped out into the hall. He didn't look back, but he marveled, as he walked away, that this was the first time he'd ever understood what people meant when they said that sharing a secret could feel as though a weight had been lifted. He certainly didn't feel that the burden of Shannon and Kelly's death was gone, but he did feel just a little bit lighter. As he boarded the hospital elevator, he began to tally up the head slaps he owed DiNozzo; he'd been falling behind since he'd been separated from his team for so much of the last few days.

* * *

End 13

* * *

Disclaimers in pt. 1


	14. Chapter 14

Good Shepherd

pt. 14

* * *

In the end, he didn't see her in person for nearly two weeks. They caught another case the day she called to announce she'd "broken out of jail," and it kept them shuttling between Pax River and headquarters for three days with a fourth required to finish the paperwork. Then, when he'd called to ask her for dinner, he got her voicemail. Further inquiries revealed that she'd been called out of town. He pressed Cynthia, who finally admitted that her boss was in Laos.

"Laos?" he groused down the phone. "What the hell is in Laos?"

"She didn't say, Agent Gibbs. Good Shepherd does some work there. Do you want me to give her a message when she checks in?"

"Nah, just tell her I called." He hung up and set McGee on the case.

"Four deminers were kidnapped three days ago outside Luang Prabang," McGee reported. "Doesn't say who they were working for—just that it was an international organization." He looked up from his computer. "But since you don't believe in coincidences…"

"Right. They know who's behind it?"

McGee scanned the information he'd found. "Not definitely. One article speculates on a political faction, another on drug lords. There just isn't enough information."

Gibbs nodded shortly. "Fine. Head down and see if Abby needs any help."

* * *

She called him at work on a Thursday.

"Gibbs."

"You sound so gruff, Jethro. Didn't anyone ever teach you to say 'hello'?"

"Jenny," he said, letting small smile creep over his face. "Are you back?"

"I am."

"How was Laos?"

"Humid. The wet season lingered a little late this year."

"Well." He didn't have much to add to that.

"You owe me dinner."

"I do," he confirmed.

"At place with tablecloths," she warned. "And printed menus."

"I think I can manage that."

"All right—hang on." He heard her conversing softly with someone else. "That's fine," she finished. "Sorry, Jethro. Apparently I'll be spending this evening with your friend Tobias. So, tomorrow at 7.30?"

"I don't think I've ever had to do less work planning a date."

"Good. Pick me up at home. I trust your investigative skills will be up to finding the address."

"I'll put my whole team on it."

"I'd rather you didn't," she drawled. "They seem nice, but it's you I'm looking forward to seeing."

"Me, too," he squeezed in before she hung up on him. Then he crossed the bullpen, suddenly needing to balance out the strange lightness that had bubbled up inside him.

"Ow, Boss!" Tony rubbed the back of his head. "What was that for?"

"You figure it out DiNozzo."

* * *

End 14

* * *

Disclaimers in pt. 1

* * *

A/N: This one is very short. The next one will be along very short_ly_.


	15. Chapter 15

Good Shepherd

pt. 15

* * *

"I love Palena," she said as he pulled up to the valet. She turned a suspicious gaze on him. "Who ratted me out?"

"Cynthia," he answered with a smile.

"Maybe I'll thank her on Monday."

"Maybe?"

"Evening's just gotten started, Jethro." She smiled as he held the door.

She'd been wearing a coat when he picked her up at her house, in deference to the late November chill. So he didn't really get the full effect of the dress until she handed that coat to the hostess before following the waitress to their table. He registered that it was a deep green and that it looked like silk, but mostly he registered the absence of the dress. The long column of her spine was bare to the top of her hips. It was a dress designed to get attention, and he stared after her, peripherally aware that other men—and women—in the restaurant were doing the same.

As he watched her sit, he realized he'd forgotten to follow except with his eyes.

"You know, you could have just told me you liked my dress," she observed as he crossed to take his own seat.

"I like your dress," he confirmed.

The front of the dress was much more conservative than the back, with a high neck and long sleeves, but it did nothing to disguise the shape of her body. It also didn't hide the outline of the bandages on her right shoulder and alongside her sternum.

They made polite conversation as the water was poured. Based on DiNozzo's comments about the bourbon, he let her choose the wine. When the waiter had finally retreated, he glanced across to find her closing her menu.

"Not hungry?"

"I already know what I'm having." She was staring intently at him, and he wondered if that comment had anything to do with food. He smiled and returned his gaze to the menu, letting her study him.

"Did you close the case?" He realized she meant the one they'd been working on when he left.

"I always get my man."

"Oh, really? And your women?"

"Get them, too."

"Mmhmm."

They ordered, and he decided that there was nothing for it but to start in the deep end. "How was your meeting with Fornell?"

"Though unhappy about the recent developments, Tobias has agreed that my use in this particular project is at an end." Her tone was bone-dry. "What is it with you law enforcement types and Old Testament names, anyway?"

"Don't know. Maybe we're the products of an angry god."

"He was definitely angry."

Gibbs spared a thought for his old friend, who was never particularly gracious in defeat. "You set him straight?"

A muscle in her jaw jumped. "Eventually."

"What'd he say to you?"

"Nothing new." She gave him a wry look. "Nothing you didn't say."

"Yeah, but I'm an idiot."

"Well, at least all three of us can agree on something. Anyway," she was clearly eager to change the subject, "it's over now. I get to extricate myself—finally—and go back to being a regular civilian."

"They have a good enough cover story for you?" He'd seen operations end badly when the loose ends weren't handled.

"I get to tell the truth, ironically enough. Just ten years too late. ShepTech is focusing exclusively on guidance systems and won't have access to the sort of information and contacts they need…" She trailed off with a wave of her hand. He could imagine the rest well enough.

"And Laos?"

"Are you fishing, Jethro?"

"Are you evading the question, Jenny?"

"No. I'm evading your reaction to the answer." That pulled him up short. "There's no way you haven't already poked around enough to know why I went."

"Your deminers were kidnapped."

"By some local drug lords."

"Why?

"Why else? Ransom."

"And you got on a plane three days after getting out of the hospital—five days after collapsing in SecNav's office—and flew halfway around the world to… what, Jen? Haggle?"

"Lower your voice," she hissed, and he realized he'd been getting steadily louder. Taking a deep breath, he leaned back in his chair.

"No. And yes. I went to get my men back. I would think as a former marine you'd understand." He shot her a look. "You think you're the only one who did a little research?"

"And how did you go about getting them back?"

She leveled him with a glare. "Don't ask if you aren't certain you want to know the answer."

Things were spiraling quickly, and he decided that a tactical retreat was in order just as the main course arrived. "Okay," he conceded, holding up his hands.

She blew out a breath. "Okay." They ate in silence for a few moments, stealing glances at each other and pretending not to notice when their eyes crossed and held.

But he'd never been able to entirely let sleeping dogs lie. "Why did you go, Jen? I mean," he said to forestall another admonishment, "why you? Surely you have people on the ground who could have handled it."

"I do," she acknowledged quietly. "But I needed to be there. To make sure." He remembered her insistence at the hospital, how the determination in her eyes had convinced him to accede to her demands where words would have failed.

"DiNozzo translated Good Shepherd's motto."

"He was a good father." Her voice was neutral. "And for a long time, I thought he was a good man."

"He must have been." Her eyes snapped to his. "He produced quite the daughter."

That drew a small smile from her. "It wasn't just his choice of business associates, you know. For a long time, maybe really for my entire life up until his death, I didn't think much about what it meant that my father made his living designing and selling weapons. His death changed that—changed everything for me. I found myself with no time to mourn; I had a corporation to run and only the barest idea of how to do it. And I was trying to reconcile that responsibility with the notion of what I could live with."

"And Fornell and his cronies."

"And Fornell," she agreed. "Who dropped into the maelstrom one day to tell me that, oh, by the way, the man I was mourning wasn't really the father I'd known at all." She took a long drink of wine and the white line of her throat momentarily distracted him from the seriousness of the conversation.

"Good Shepherd saved me," she continued. Despite the even tone she'd maintained, he could hear the pain in her voice, rough and worn. "It was something I could be sure of, something I could endorse without question. No shades of grey." She laughed, remembering. "Of course, that wasn't true—turns out that getting things done in the parts of the world where minefields are isn't quite so clean—but I didn't know that at the time."

"We rarely do."

She traced circles in the condensation from her wine glass. "I wasn't religious, but with a name like mine, you can't escape the Biblical allusion. I'm not sure whether I saw myself as the shepherd or the sheep. I couldn't bear to keep the money and I couldn't bring myself to just give it away—that felt too much like giving up."

"And now?"

"And now…" She stared at the table as she mulled his question. "I'm really proud of what we do. 'I will seek what was lost and bring back what was driven away, bind up the broken and strengthen what was sick,'" she quoted. "We help. Just a little."

The vulnerability in her expression was heartbreaking, and he reached out to cover her hand with his. "You do."

She turned her hand over to clasp his. "So that's my sordid past," she said, clearly making a choice to change the tone.

"Pretty sordid," he drawled. "Good thing I'm not easily frightened."

"Oh, you're not?"

"Nope. In fact, I rather like a challenge."

"Think you're up to this one?"

"Oh, I think I'm _up to_ all sorts of things."

She laughed at his winking delivery. "Shall we skip dessert?"

"Yep."

As they recrossed the restaurant, he put his hand on the naked small of her back, pleased when he saw her shiver slightly at his touch. Her skin was smooth and warm, and he hated to see the coat go back on. The drive to her Georgetown home was quiet, but he could feel her eyes on him as he guided the car onto her street.

"Would you like to come in for a nightcap? There's bourbon."

"That expensive swill?"

"You didn't complain last time."

"Maybe I should try it again before making a decision."

"Your choice," she said, sliding out of the car. He caught up with her as she opened the front door.

He closed it behind them and then turned to hang his coat. She was starting down the hall, but he reached out and grasped her wrist, pulling her back toward him.

"Don't you want a drink?"

"Maybe later." They were facing each other, and he trailed his left hand down the long expanse of her bare back. His right hand came up to frame her face, brushing against the burnished strands of her hair. He bent his head down slowly, finally meeting her lips with his.

The first kiss was slow and sweet, but it quickly escalated. She tangled a hand in the front of his shirt, pushing him back against the door. They met each other with hungry intensity. He dropped his head to press his lips to her jawline, feeling her nipples pebble against his chest and his own arousal grow, before she crushed her lips back to his.

It was her cry of pain that broke him out of the swirling arousal. She had tried to raise her right hand to his shoulder, and the movement had pulled on the place where Tanguay's shot had torn through muscles and tendons. He pulled back slightly, trying to catch his breath, and looked into her face. Her lips were swollen and her eyes dark with want. She, too, was breathing rapidly.

"God, Jen," he murmured, resting his forehead against hers. Giving them both a little time.

"Jethro," she said in a low tone. "As much as I want this—and I do—I don't know if I'm quite up to it."

"I know."

"You, however, appear to be as good as your word." She ground her hips against his to emphasize the point.

"Christ," he groaned, putting his hands on her hips to still her movements. "Give a guy a break."

She stepped back fractionally, which was a relief but left him already missing the contact.

"Drink?"

"Yeah." He let his head fall back against the door as she moved down the hall. When he'd had a moment to collect himself, he followed.

The room was some sort of library-cum-study, lined with dark books and dark wood. He accepted the tumbler that she offered and turned to pour her own. He wondered aloud about something that had just occurred to him. "Should you be drinking with the medication?"

"Not a problem," she said shortly, her back to him.

"Why not?" He stepped closer, deliberately invading her personal space.

"Why do you think?" She took up the challenge, turning to face him.

"You're not taking them."

"Got it in one."

"You're obviously still in pain." Now that he was looking, he remembered a slight stiffness to her movements throughout the evening and the twinges that had crossed her face when she took off her coat or cut her meat.

"It's not so bad," she said dismissively.

He ran one finger lightly over the edge of the bandage apparent under her dress. "You don't have to be in pain."

"I'll bet you're a great follower of doctor's orders," she said. When he remained quiet, merely tracing the other bandage, she sighed. "My family doesn't have such a good track record with opiates."

"Your father."

She nodded. "I'll never know exactly what he was thinking, but he was injured in a plane crash not long before he started selling secrets. He got hooked on the pain meds. I've always wondered if it contributed.

"But it isn't just that. My mother died of bone cancer when I was six. I don't remember much about her, just the pain she was in and the pills that were supposed to help but just turned her into someone who didn't know me."

He'd never been a man of many words, so he leaned in and kissed her gently, in comfort this time instead of passion.

They sat in her study for another hour, drinking bourbon and purposefully choosing light subjects. He regaled her with his versions of some of the tales Ducky had told and chuckled as she pointed out the discrepancies in their accounts. When the clock struck midnight, he rose.

"Thank you for a lovely evening, Director Shepard."

She responded to his teasing tone. "You're quite welcome, Agent Gibbs. I'm very glad that you could make it."

She walked him to the door and stood watching as he donned his coat. Once it was on, she used the lapels to pull him in for a searing kiss. "I'm sorry I couldn't quite follow through on the evening's promise," she said when they could breathe again.

"Gives me a good reason to take you up on the dinner that you owe me," he responded.

"_I_ owe _you_?"

"Exactly," he murmured, dipping down for another kiss. "And I'll take you up on it."

She smiled against his lips. "All right, then. Tablecloths?"

"Your choice."

Her left hand cupped his cheek. "Goodnight, Jethro."

"Goodnight, Jen." With one last brush of his lips over hers, he slipped out the door. He knew she was watching him walk to the car, hip cocked against the doorframe. He put a little extra spring in his step as he unlocked his car and slipped in to drive away, already looking forward to her call.

* * *

End 15

* * *

Disclaimers in pt. 1


	16. Chapter 16

Good Shepherd

pt. 16_ (please note rating change)_

* * *

In the next three weeks, they had coffee twice and lunch once, and he began to despair of ever getting her alone in private outside of a hospital room. She apologized profusely. The combination of her absence from the office—he looked away, remembering—and the hijacking of their shipment meant that things were hectic at ShepTech and she was working double-time to reassure clients. She didn't mention Lodestone, but he'd seen Fornell, knew she'd had a meeting with the mysterious La Grenouille to start tying up loose ends.

He glimpsed her once across a parking lot at Quantico, but her eyes were hidden behind oversized sunglasses and her focus was on the Base Commander. Gibbs noticed that the Base Commander was returning the favor, albeit with a gaze that dipped slightly lower.

In the middle of a particularly difficult case, a half-pound bag of Kopi Luwak appeared on his desk without a note and he grinned at her attempts at civilizing him.

If he just barely stayed sane in between remembering how her mouth tasted and wondering about the rest of her, it was because of the nights. Each evening at some point they found a way to speak. Often, she called from her office long after he'd gone home, and he would hold the phone between his shoulder and ear while he poured bourbon into a chipped mug. Occasionally he called, stepping away from a crime scene for five minutes while his team processed or gazing out across the shadowed bullpen.

He had never been a phone person, preferring showing to telling. But Jenny didn't need him to fill the empty space, and talking with her was more like touching than he ever remembered. One night, when she sounded more worn than usual, he simply put the phone on speaker and they breathed along the line together: lulled by the susurrations of him sanding the boat, the gentle scritch of her pen across the page.

The night she fell asleep on her desk and on the phone with him, he decided to stage a coup. Her staff proved eager quislings. Cynthia, whom he already knew to be a valuable ally, turned out to be both more observant and more devious than he'd given her credit for—and he made a mental note to stay in her good graces.

Therefore, when he turned up in the outer office at 7pm on the Friday evening, he carried a bottle of Stellenbosch red that Ducky had recommended highly. Cynthia's face lit up when he placed it on her desk.

"You work too late," he said seriously.

"You should meet my boss," she responded.

"I intend to. Is she in?"

"Of course." Cynthia's smile was wry. "And since I've already sent the guys home, if you let her back in here before noon tomorrow, I'm personally going to tell her security detail that you're the reason they have to come in early."

"That bad?"

"I think she's slept in the office for the last three days. Even Stanley's getting kind of twitchy."

"Go home. I'll take care of it."

She stood to clear his entrance. Just as he reached for the handle, she laid a gentle hand on his arm. "Be good to her, Agent Gibbs."

He put his hand over hers and gave his most reassuring smile. "I promise. Now go—before she has us both keelhauled for this."

He pushed the door open and found her bent over a set of schematics that were stretched across the surface of her desk, reading glasses perched on her nose.

"Just put it on the table, Cynthia. And then go home. I've told you a hundred times—you don't have to stay because I'm here. One of us should have a life."

"Actually, both of you have reservations." Her head snapped up at the sound of his voice.

"You're not Cynthia." She was trying to look stern, but he could see the smile creeping in at the corners.

"I'm not?"

"Well, if you are, you look terrible."

He'd crossed the room during their teasing exchange and now canted a hip against the corner of her desk. "You look tired."

"It's a wonder you ever got divorced, Jethro—what with your gift for flattery."

He smiled and held out a hand. "C'mon."

"Where?" She shook her head. "I can't. I have to—"

"Cynthia checked your schedule. Nothing has to be done before Monday."

As he levered her up from the chair, she asked, "Where are we going?"

"I decided I'd go grey waiting for you to take me to dinner. So I'm taking me to dinner and you're coming."

"I need to—"

"Stanley's gone home. He'll report back at noon tomorrow. Cynthia has cleared your inbox and is off for a date with Cannon—"

"Cameron," she corrected, looking a bit dazed.

"A date with Cameron. And we have reservations in 20 minutes, so we need to leave now." He steered her toward the door, intercepting the briefcase she picked up and trading it for her coat.

As he propelled her into the elevator, her brain seemed to catch up with her body. "Noon tomorrow? Awfully sure of yourself, aren't you?"

* * *

They went to Jaleo for tapas, and he began to suspect that he might have tipped his hand too early. "I am really going to have to have a talk with Cynthia," she muttered as they were seated.

He forgot his concerns, however—and, indeed, his own name—watching her eat the grilled asparagus.

"Jesus, Jen," he groaned as he watched her lips close around another green stalk, her eyes fluttering closed in ecstasy. He shifted in his seat, glad he'd opted for a restaurant with tablecloths.

They sparred over the food, forks clashing, and verbally. The same ease that they'd found in their late-night conversations was present, helped along by a nice Rioja. When he'd entered her office, he'd been struck by the dark circles her careful makeup couldn't quite hide and the thinness of her face. As dinner went on, he lost sight of those things and became immersed in the green of her eyes, the way she punctuated her points with a stab of her fork, the remembered feel of his hands in her hair. This time, he was the one suggesting that they skip dessert. She acquiesced readily.

"You know," she mused, as he once again drove back toward her house, "if I were the suspicious type, I might think there were some skeletons in your closets that you didn't want me to see."

"Just a boat in the basement."

"Really?" She sounded delighted. "What ever for?"

"Because I'm not finished building it yet."

"Well that explains it all."

He looked across, amused by her sarcasm, to find heat in her gaze. "What are you thinking about?"

"You. In a t-shirt. And sawdust." The low, gravely tone of her voice had him once again shifting uncomfortably in his seat, and he sped up. She didn't touch him once as they hurtled through the dark but populous streets of Georgetown, but he could feel her eyes on him the entire time.

This time there was no pretense of a nightcap and no gentle beginning. His hands tangled in her hair, guiding her back against the smooth wood of her front door as their bodies fused. She reached around and grabbed his ass, pulling him even closer, and he groaned into her mouth. When he tilted her head back to lap at the soft skin of her throat, she shoved him backwards.

He froze, unsure. But she sidled past him with a lazy grin and reached back to grab his hand. "You've been doing entirely too much of the leading this evening. And I have a perfectly good bedroom."

He tripped up the stairs after her like a gawky teenager unused to the length of his limbs and followed her into a room that did, indeed, contain a bed. He knew, because she put a slim hand on the center of his chest and pressed until it met the back of his knees. She drug his jacket off his shoulders and started to work the buttons on his shirt as he reached out to return the favor. She proved much more deft, and he was so lost in the feel of her hands on his bare chest that he almost missed the fact that she froze momentarily when he freed the first button.

He trailed his lips down from hers, following the path of his fingers as they prized each button open. Her hands came to rest on his hips and her eyes closed, her breathing rapid and shallow. She averted her face slightly, her red hair falling across her cheek. He carefully pushed the shirt back from her right shoulder and laid his lips against the puckered, angry skin of the bullet's entrance. She tightened her grip as he used his tongue to trace the ragged edges of the wound.

When he moved a hand up to push back the other side of the shirt, he felt her go absolutely still. Instead of covering her, he shifted back fractionally. As he waited for her to open her eyes, he visually traced the thin red line left by the knife's path. It ran from her collarbone nearly to her hip, dipping into her lacy bra, missing her nipple but not the sensitive flesh of her breast. It blazed bright against her pale skin.

Mesmerized by the shadows the moonlight cast, he reached out to trail a finger along the scar, watching as her nipple pebbled and she shivered slightly. When she made no move to open her eyes, he raised a hand to cup her chin and turned her face to his. "God, Jen, you're beautiful," he murmured, hearing the break in his own voice. At that, her eyes did open, and he held her gaze, allowing her scrutiny.

There was uncertainty in her gaze, and it kindled the hatred he felt for Tanguay. But as she searched him carefully and found only sincerity in his eyes, he could see the flicker of desire return. It transmuted the flame in his own belly, sent it rushing downward and upward. When she licked her bottom lip, her eyes dark, lust flared again. He leant back, pulling her down to tumble them both on the bed.

Their legs tangled as she raised herself over him. "I see the shoulder's feeling better."

"Much," she said before silencing him with a kiss.

He raised one hand to cup a breast, slid the other down her back to her ass while she licked her way from his sternum to his throat. When their hips met he knew he was in real danger of completely succumbing to the pull of her. Raising one hip, he flipped them over and took a minute to admire the wanton picture she made, her red hair spilled over the pillows. She used the opportunity to hook her fingers in the waistband of his pants and flick open the button. He couldn't hold back his groan as she slid the zipper down, the knuckles of her hand brushing along his length.

"You're overdressed for the task at hand, Agent Gibbs."

"I don't appear to be the only one," he noted.

They made short work of each other's clothes and then he stretched himself above her, hesitating fractionally before lowering himself to cover her entirely. She hissed and arched into him as he slipped a thigh between hers. Everywhere her restless hands landed there were sparks under his skin, and when she reached between them and stroked him, he gave up on slow.

He slid into her, swallowed up by the warmth and the soft sounds she made. Stilled for a moment when they were fully joined--only to smile against her skin as she moved impatiently under him. He bent his head to suckle a breast; she wrapped her legs around his hips and nipped at the skin of his shoulder. They moved together urgently, tangled in the taste and sounds of each other.

He was taken completely by surprise when she planted her foot beside him and rolled them over again. But the new position had its advantages, not least of which was the view of the elegant creature moving above him. Her creamy skin blushed where he'd touched her, and her breasts swayed as she undulated against him. Feeling the telltale tightness gathering in his groin, he reached a hand between their bodies and used the pads of his fingers to stroke her.

"Gods, yes," she hissed, head thrown back, hair streaming behind her. He anchored her hips with his other hand, feeling the tremors that traveled along her muscles. And then, with a low groan, she broke apart. Her hands clenched on his shoulders, nails digging into his slick flesh. He rolled them again, driving into her as the contraction of her muscles engulfed him until he tipped himself over the edge and into her.

Afterwards they lay sated in the disarray of the bedclothes. He traced patterns on her belly while she absently sifted a hand through his hair. He was a little stunned by the strength of the emotions she'd aroused in him, and he suspected she was feeling something similar.

She finally broke the heavy silence with a huge yawn. He winced a little at the sound of her jaw creaking but couldn't entirely cover his snicker. "Sleep," he said, pressing a kiss to her temple and fumbling for the sheet.

She mumbled a response and rolled away from him, curling onto her side. When he pulled her into his body, her breathing was already beginning to even out.

* * *

End pt. 16

* * *

Disclaimers in pt. 1


	17. Chapter 17

Good Shepherd

pt. 17

* * *

Gibbs smiled to himself as he hefted the plane to a piece of wood. The boat had been languishing lately as more of his evenings were spent in the company of a certain redhead. She had finally seen the skeleton he was hiding in his basement. He closed his eyes as the sense-memory washed over him of her trailing her hands over the ribs of the other female in his life. He'd had her skirt around her waist and her back against the boat before he'd even thought about it, swallowing the noises she made that definitely did not indicate protest. The bill for dry cleaning the suit had been on his desk when he arrived back from lunch the following day.

The reverie into which he'd fallen was disrupted by the soft but distinct sound of his front door closing. He paused mid-motion, listening to the footsteps as they crossed to the basement door. Not Jenny or any of his team; the cadence and weight were wrong.

His visitor announced himself as he reached the stairs. "Jethro."

"Tobias. What brings you to my lair?" He inspected the mug he wasn't using, found it clean enough, and poured a measure of bourbon into it.

"Thanks." Fornell took a seat on the stairs and gazed down into the amber liquid in silence. Gibbs returned to his planing, having learned from experience that his friend would speak when he was ready—and not before.

Several moments passed in silence. Though Gibbs's eyes never left the wood, he could tell that something was troubling the other man, who spent the time staring either into his drink or into the middle distance. He finally stirred, holding out his empty mug, which Gibbs silently refilled.

"Saw you in the paper last week," Fornell finally began. "Good photo."

Gibbs grimaced. He'd given in to Jenny's request that he attend a DOJ function with her and been displeased to find himself pictured alongside her in the Post the next day. Despite how fiercely she usually guarded her privacy, she'd taken it in stride, making him realize just how socially eligible a single woman who controlled both money and weaponry was considered.

Fornell took another drink and turned toward him. "We're hearing some… rumblings."

He stopped and carefully put the plane down, picking up his own drink while he considered what Fornell wasn't saying.

"What sort of rumblings?"

"It's possible that some of the ends of Lodestone are a little looser than I would like."

He froze. "How loose?"

"I'm not one of your agents. I'm not going to cower in the corner just because you glare at me." When the stare did not abate, Fornell sighed. "At first we thought they were just pissed because they'd lost a source. Typical disgruntlement."

"But?" Gibbs prompted.

"But now they've gone quiet. Maybe they got over it—found another source."

"Maybe they suspect that you're onto them?" Gibbs didn't entirely succeed at keeping the edge out of his tone and didn't care.

Fornell wouldn't meet his eyes. "It's unlikely. We've been monitoring La Grenouille and his operations through other channels. All indications are that they're carrying on business as usual with no special interest in Jenny Shepard or NCIS. I'm not even supposed to be talking to you about this now that the ShepTech case is closed."

"Why are you here, then?"

He shrugged slightly. "Got a bad feeling about this one, Jethro."

Gibbs drained his mug and leaned back against the frame of the boat. "Send the info over to my team."

"You know I can't do that."

"Damn right you can."

Fornell shook his head. "This goes way beyond you and me. Any information shared would have to come from a much higher level on the food chain. Even I don't have access to half of it."

"So get access."

His friend's glare was equally obdurate. "I can't. Look—I'm going out on a limb here. There's nothing concrete, no hard intel. I'm just telling you what my gut senses when I read between some lines."

"Why?"

"What do you mean why?"

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you're a stubborn bastard, but I think you have her best interests at heart. And despite the fact that she's twice as smart as you and three times better looking, she seems to like you. Which means you might be able to keep her safe." Fornell rose from his seat and set his mug on the workbench. "There are things I don't know about this case, and they make me nervous. The Agency has its own agenda, and I don't know what they think is a fair price for getting their preferred outcome." With that, he turned and walked up the stairs.

Gibbs poured another slug of bourbon into his mug and contemplated the surface of the liquid before downing it in a single motion. Then he picked up the phone.

"Stanley? It's Jethro Gibbs, NCIS. We may have a problem."

* * *

He wasn't naïve enough to think she wouldn't notice. But he did expect it to take her more than two hours. His phone rang just past midnight.

"Jethro." He could hear the traffic sounds as the car drove through the city streets.

"Hello, Jen."

"How's the boat?"

"She's fine. Comin' along."

"Good. Why did Stanley feel Bob needed a friend to help him drive me home from a perfectly ordinary reception?"

"Did you ask him?"

"I did."

"And?"

"And he was simultaneously monosyllabic and evasive. I suspected your influence almost immediately."

"Don't suppose we could talk about it in the morning?"

"I'm not asleep, and neither are you. In fact, you probably haven't even set foot in your bedroom."

"Sometimes I sleep under the boat. Good for my back."

"Jethro," she growled. He could picture her expression. Her mouth would be pressed in a thin line and her green eyes flashing. His groin stirred slightly at the image.

"Fornell came by to see me." The sharp intake of breath was her only audible reaction. "He just wanted to be sure that someone was keeping an eye on you until they wrap Lodestone up."

She was silent for a few moments. "What are you not telling me?"

"Nothing," he defended. "Nothing concrete. I just want to keep you safe, Jen," he said, dropping his voice to a tone he'd already learned she appreciated. "Let Stanley do his job."

"I hate this."

"I know." He also knew that she was thinking about Melvin. He'd seen her hold herself taut as a bowstring at the funeral while she spoke eloquently and attempted to comfort the man's widow. Knew that the trust she'd established for his children was anonymous but he doubted anyone was fooled.

"How was Tobias, anyway?"

He gave her an out, launching into a story about a case they'd once worked together that had ended with both of them falling into a dumpster. As he talked, he listened to the sounds of her evening ending: arriving home, bidding her escorts goodnight, the one-two of her heels hitting the floor, the soft rustle of clothes being removed and sheets pulled back. By the time he reached the end of the story, he could already hear sleep creeping in at the edges of her speech.

"How did you get the smell out of the upholstery?" she asked.

"Didn't," he said with a smile in his voice. "But it was a Bureau car."

She chuckled. "Serves him right. Lunch tomorrow?"

"If we don't—"

"Catch a case. I know."

"Right."

"Thanks for talking me home. Good night, Jethro."

"Night, Jen."

* * *

He told McGee to look into it—discreetly—but Fornell had been right. There wasn't much to find, and what there was to find was, at best, equivocal. So he stewed and slapped Tony on the head more often than usual and allowed Ziva to give everyone a refresher course in self-defense so he could have the satisfaction of dropping the probies to the mat.

Jen went off to some conference whose name he couldn't pronounce and whose acronym he couldn't remember, and she refused to take it all seriously enough for his liking. And McGee, surprisingly, refused after the second day to track her cell phone. When he asked Abby, a little sheepishly but with a Caf-Pow in hand and his full bluster, she just shook her head. He was beginning to think that he wasn't the only one on his team with a weakness for redheads.

When Jen returned, instead of calling her in the evenings he began to show up at her front door. Sometimes he brought takeout, knowing she wouldn't have eaten at the office. She always smiled the same knowing smile and offered him a bourbon. On the nights he beat her home, she called ahead, allowing him time to unfold his stiff frame from the stoop before the car pulled into the driveway. Neither one mentioned La Grenouille or the FBI, and he always left early in the morning to go home and change.

When she snapped at him, he mostly ignored it. Though the evening she found him hovering at the door to her study as she worked, she'd proven to have slightly too good an arm. Holding ice to his head, she'd apologized profusely until he'd had to kiss her simply to shut her up. "Should have seen the paperweight coming," he said ruefully. Of course, when DiNozzo asked about the lump the following day, he'd simply given the younger man a black look. And then a ringing slap when the younger man nodded sagely and murmured, "Women."

The night his team spent combing all of Maryland for the sailor who'd gone AWOL with a packet of classified documents, he called her three times between 1 and 4am. When she told him, in no uncertain terms, precisely into what shape he could fold his concern and where he could place his phone, he felt sure she'd be fine until the morning. At lunch the next day he discovered that flowers, combined with a slightly hangdog look, didn't result in the total absolution he remembered. But her rueful laugh and the way she touched his hand let him know that she hadn't forgotten the story he'd told her by her hospital bed. And when he was once again on her doorstep at 10pm, she let them both into the house as though nothing had happened.

And then she pinned him against her front door—again—before she unceremoniously took the halves of his shirt in her hands and ripped them apart. Buttons skittered down the hardwood hallway. His groin leapt to attention, but he kept his hands in her hair, unable to shake the protective feeling Fornell's insinuations had inspired. She moved a leg between his and ground herself against him, the heat and friction drawing a growl from the back of his throat that vibrated through both of their mouths. He used his hands to pull her head back a little, content for a moment just to trace her flushed cheeks and swollen lips with his eyes.

He had sensed, but discounted as unimportant, her growing frustration with his carefulness. But now she opened her eyes inches from his face and stared back at him. "Whatever you're thinking, stop it."

"Jen—"

"No. I'm tired of you treating me like some sort of breakable object. This is my home." She dropped a hand to his ass, skimming over his sidearm. "You can decide which weapon you want to use this evening," moving her hips to punctuate the point, "but I'm fed up with listening to half of your brain grind away on protection detail."

He wasn't good at taking orders and had rules about admitting to being wrong. But he could feel her breasts against his chest through the silk of her shirt and see the pulse jumping in the base of her throat. Plus, he knew Stanley had assigned someone to sit on the house without telling her. He felt something inside him unclench just a little as she scraped her teeth over his clavicle and let his hands roam over her body, gripping hard enough that he knew he would leave bruises. For one night, someone else could do the worrying.

* * *

End 17

* * *

Disclaimers in pt. 1

* * *

A/N: Thanks for sticking with me. And especially for all your reviews and support. We're almost there-- I promise.


	18. Chapter 18

Good Shepherd

pt. 18

* * *

Two days later, his phone rang as he was heading to the elevator for a last coffee before the shop closed.

"Gibbs."

"Agent Gibbs, this is Stanley."

His stomach dropped a little, and he swallowed hard. "Yes?"

Stanley must have heard something in his voice, because he hurried to say: "I don't want to alarm you." Well, that helped. "But we've lost Director Shepard."

"What the hell do you mean you 'lost' her?" He swung back to his desk, yanked his weapon from the drawer, and gave a jerk of his head that his team scrambled to follow. While Stanley tried to explain how a woman with red hair wearing heels had eluded his best men, he hustled them into the car. In his urgency, he tossed Ziva the keys, ignoring the look of panic that flashed across DiNozzo's face. "Hay-Adams," he ground out and winced as his head bounced against the headrest with the force of the acceleration.

He tried her cell on the drive; it went straight to voicemail. He tamped down on the part of him that was remembering Shannon—and finding Jenny tied to a chair in a bare apartment. They were met in front of the hotel by a man he vaguely recognized. "Agent Gibbs? If you'll come with me."

They followed in silence through the tastefully appointed lobby. Bob was standing outside a banquet room and the low murmur of voices indicated that whatever the event was, it was not over.

"Have you found her?"

"No. Stanley's sweeping the room again." Bob nodded to their escort who slipped in through the double doors, presumably to assist his boss.

"McGee?"

His subordinate hung up his phone, already knowing what he was being asked. "Abby tried the trace, but her cellphone's off."

He turned to Ziva and Tony, who were straining like horses on a tether. "Waiting on something, DiNozzo?"

"Door-to-door sweep. On it, Boss."

"You two," he nodded to McGee and Bob, "start talking to people. Find out who saw her last."

He barreled through the ballroom door into a crush of the well-dressed and well-connected. The lighting was low and the place was packed, which made it difficult to press his way through, but he was heedless of anything but his single goal. He could hear his arrival ripple through the crowd in angry mutters as he reached Stanley.

"What happened?"

"I don't know. I just turned my back for a split second—a guest fell, bringing down a waiter with a drinks tray, and the sound, well…"

He knew. Their nerves had all been on edge these past weeks, watching for threats in every shadow. It hadn't helped that Jen chafed under the increased scrutiny, hating the loss of privacy and the restrictions, and snapping at all of them from time to time. A tiny part of him pitied the men before him.

"Where did you see her last?"

Stanley gestured toward a corner of the room near the fire doors. "She was standing there. She had just taken a call on her cell phone."

"Who?"

"Don't know. It's too loud in this room and she was speaking softly. When I turned back around, she was gone."

He felt his heart rate spike and breathed deeply to harness the adrenaline. He snapped orders to Stanley and Bob, who didn't hesitate in deferring to his authority. And then he headed off toward the emergency exit.

As he reached out for the handle, the door flew open. He leapt back, drawing his weapon. Only to realize that his gun was pointed directly between the eyes of a laughing Jenny Shepard.

She froze in place, her grin evaporating. "Jethro?"

He sucked a breath, and lowered his gun slightly as he felt fine trembles begin in his hand. His eyes darted over her, looking for any signs of distress and finding none. She raised her hand infinitely slowly and closed it over his wrist. It was the touch of her fingers that snapped him back to the present, made him realize that there was a ballroom full of now-silent people staring at them and a rather horrified-looking man standing just behind Jen.

"Jethro, I'm fine," she said, pressing his gun hand down. "I'm fine," she reiterated as Stanley and Bob appeared at his shoulder.

As he thumbed the safety on, the fine tremors chased up his arm and he could feel his panic transmuting into rage. "You're fine? Well, isn't that lucky? Of course, if you hadn't been fine, no one would have been any the wiser, since you just thought you'd throw caution to the wind and duck out for a quick fling in a back hallway!" He broke off, breathing hard. His voice had risen and until he was shouting at her in the still-silent room.

She didn't flinch—didn't so much as blink. He thought for a moment she was considering hitting him, but instead she tightened her grip on his wrist and turned, pulling him behind her back through the emergency door, which clanged shut behind them. Neither spoke as she hauled him down the bare hallway and through an unmarked door into some sort of storage room. When the second door closed, she whirled on him, pinning him against it with a furious look.

"What the hell did you think that you were doing?" Her voice was deceptively even.

"Me? I'm not the one who wandered off from my security detail. What did you think you were doing?"

"My job," she spat. "That was the president of Northrop Grumman that you just pulled your gun on and then accused me of fucking like a cheap whore. In front of most of my best customers."

Some impertinent part of his brain was focused on the depth of the décolletage that her dress was showing and the raw sound of the curse in her mouth. But his anger overrode even his libido. "Dammit, Jen! We couldn't find you—couldn't reach you. You could have been hurt—or worse!" He wasn't making a rational argument. Couldn't do anything but grip her arms and shout. And he'd never known her to back down from a fight. So he was surprised when she closed her eyes and raised a gentle hand to his face.

He wasn't in the mood to be placated and told her so.

"I'm sorry I worried you. But there was no reason at all to be worried. In fact, why are you even here?"

"Stanley called me when he couldn't find you." Even that was an accusation.

She sighed and looked away, muttering.

"What?"

"I said that I can't live like this."

"Like what, Jen? In a way that allows us to keep you safe from some of the world's most well-connected weapons dealers who just might want to kill you for ratting them out to the CIA?"

He saw the pain flash across her face before she ruthlessly tamped it down. "Jethro, I'm a grown woman. I've been making my own decisions for a long time now. I respect that you have this need to keep people safe. I love that about you. But you've hardly let me breathe alone for the past weeks.

"I do understand the need for security. But I can't handle you—or anyone else—constantly looking over my shoulder. I realize that this hits close to home for you. God knows, it's not my intention to hurt you. But there aren't ever going to be any guarantees.

"They might never bring in La Grenouille and his organization. I've made my peace with it. You have to decide whether you can live with that."

And then she reached behind him to open the door, sweeping out in a rustle of satin and perfume, leaving him alone and stunned.

* * *

End 18

* * *

Disclaimers in pt. 1


	19. Chapter 19

Good Shepherd

pt. 19

* * *

It was Ducky who finally called him on it. "Come along, Jethro."

He didn't even look up. "Busy, Duck."

"No, you're not. Your team doesn't have any open cases."

"Plenty of cold ones."

"Not tonight." When he finally did raise his eyes, there was no teasing in his friend's face. "We're going out."

"No."

"You've been like a bear with a sore paw for a week now. The Director is seriously considering early retirement—for you. Abby has cried twice. And your entire team is one tirade away from mutiny. You can come with me and have a stiff drink or you can start the paperwork to join Mike Franks in Mexico."

He rose without a word and followed Ducky into the elevator and then the Morgan. Stared out the window with his teeth gritted as they navigated to a small, dark bar that he didn't recognize, and sat sullenly as Ducky procured two rounds of drinks, settled into a booth, and commanded: "Speak."

He even considered not responding. But that felt too childish even for the black mood he was in.

"She left me." He ran a finger around the rim of one bourbon glass contemplatively and then emptied it, pulling the second to himself.

"That isn't precisely what happened."

"Did she—" He cut himself off. It didn't really matter how Ducky knew. "She wouldn't let me do my job, Duck."

His old friend leaned across the table. "Jethro, if I recall correctly, she was of great help to you in doing precisely your job not long ago."

Another round of drinks appeared and he nodded absently at the bartender. "But now she is the job."

"Do you not trust her security?"

He shrugged minimally. "They got to her once."

"And that's really the problem, isn't it?"

He slammed his hand onto the table, dancing their glasses and the napkin dispenser and causing Ducky to start. "The problem is that there's a goddamn international arms dealer who wants her head on a plate and no one but me is taking it seriously!"

"I thought you were satisfied with the arrangements you and Stanley put in place?"

He shook his head but wasn't going to be baited into out-arguing himself.

"So what is it then?" Ducky pressed. "Does it really have anything to do with the case at all? Or was it simply the realization that she, like Shannon and Kelly, is vulnerable?"

"We're all vulnerable."

"Precisely, my friend. None of us gets any guarantees."

He was silent, staring at the warped lines of the table refracted through the bottom of his glass. He could feel Ducky's patient scrutiny. It would have been so easy to simply accept what was being offered, surrender the driving sense that it was somehow his responsibility to protect them all. But each time over the past weeks he'd thought about what that would really mean, he'd been unable to escape the press of his memories. Kelly and Shannon, alive and laughing. Jenny, leaning her bloodied forehead gently against his shirt. Kate, endlessly falling on the rooftop.

He pushed back roughly from the table, not meeting Ducky's eyes, and walked to the bar. The urge to simply flee was strong, and he knew that his old friend would let him go. But he'd spent a long time running—mostly in place—and so he returned to the table with another round and left a generous tip behind. Ducky took the whisky as the peace offering it was intended to be.

"Is she worth it, Jethro?"

"Worth what?"

"Worth facing the uncertainty for." Ducky paused for a long time, until he finally looked up, unsure what such silence meant from the normally voluble man. Ducky was staring off into space, and he wondered what memory had caught the other man. "Not everyone gets a choice, you know."

Gibbs kept silent, wondering if Ducky might tell the story, but instead he shook himself and leveled his gaze at Jethro. "She doesn't get a choice."

Not for the first time, he wondered at the resilience and generosity of his team. He knew, because he was Gibbs, that Ziva had called Jenny to offer a morning's instruction at the firing range. And McGee had let slip that the tiny, spiky piece of metal he'd mistaken for a bomb fragment on Abby's desk was actually a piece of jewelry Jenny had given her. An artist who made beautiful things that looked deadly seemed right up the goth's alley.

"She gets a choice about cooperating with her detail," he protested.

"And you must admit that she has been—for her—quite good about it."

"For her." It wasn't much comfort.

"Yes, well. You yourself are not a paragon of patient endurance."

"If she doesn't trust me to do my job, how will she ever trust me to do anything else?"

Ducky was unexpectedly vehement. "First of all, Jethro, protecting her is not your job. It's Stanley's. And secondly, that's bloody nonsense and you know it. She trusted you with her life and, more importantly, with her heart. And you returned that trust. Until you let your fear get the best of you."

"I don't know, Duck," he said quietly, when the storm had passed. "I don't know if I can do this."

"But in many ways you already have."

He gave the ME a perplexed look.

"You've been an absolute nightmare this past week," Ducky explained. "Ever since that night at the Tactical Innovations Convention when, according to young Timothy, you disappeared for an hour."

He hadn't realized he'd spent quite that long in the anonymous room after she'd left, breathing her perfume and nourishing his anger to ward off the fear that hadn't quite been banished by seeing her whole and hale. When he had finally emerged, she and her security had been long gone. McGee had been star-struck again with some story about how diplomatic she'd been, smoothing over the situation, and he'd nearly taken his agent's head off with a well-placed head slap. He did distinctly remember the look McGee had given him—a puppy who had never expected to be kicked.

"You think the die is cast?"

"I think," Ducky said carefully, "that you are already much more deeply involved that you would like to believe, and that simply avoiding her and your feelings is not a tenable solution."

He didn't have a reply for that, and Ducky didn't seem to need one. They drank in silence for awhile, each man lost in his own thoughts. Finally Ducky rose and he followed suit, helping his friend into his coat.

The drive to Gibbs's home was subdued, backed by something he assumed was Mozart, and he could feel the bourbon and the stress combining to make his head heavy. When they arrived, Ducky killed the motor and he sat for a moment before he reached for the door handle.

"Jethro," his friend said gently as Gibbs stood on the curb. "The past will wait forever. But the present won't." That look of longing again passed briefly over the features still shadowed by the Morgan's interior.

"Good night, Duck." He closed the car door quietly. "And thank you."

* * *

End 19

* * *

Disclaimers in pt. 1


	20. Chapter 20

Good Shepherd

pt. 20

* * *

She opened her front door barefoot and wearing jeans, and he nearly forgot the reason he'd come.

"Shouldn't open the door to strangers," he said mildly when his higher brain functions kicked back in gear.

"While you are a strange man, you're not a stranger. Besides, I saw you on this irritating little camera system Stanley had installed." She gestured to the panel by the door which did, indeed, display an image of him standing on her front porch before walking off down the hall. He took it as a good sign that she left the door open.

He stepped through and closed it, throwing the deadbolt, before following. She was in the kitchen, of all places, though not for any reason having to do with food. What appeared to be the shell of a computer sat on her kitchen floor, and the table was covered with the innards it seemed to have vomited up. A small soldering iron and assorted other tools were neatly arrayed.

"Building a bomb?"

"Rebuilding a computer. It's a rather mindless task. Helps me think." Her tone was neutral as she resumed the work his visit had interrupted.

He stood awkwardly by the island for awhile, watching her sure hands work and feeling too big for the space he filled. Strands of her hair kept slipping out of the messy ponytail and she blew absently at them to keep them from her face. Finally, satisfied with whatever she'd completed, she put the circuit board aside and wiped her hands on a rag.

"Something to drink?"

"It's a bit early, isn't it—"

"I meant lemonade, Jethro. Or iced tea, if you prefer."

"Lemonade."

She uncoiled herself from the chair and leaned back slightly to stretch muscles that had stiffened as she worked. He tried to avoid the way that put certain assets on more prominent display, not sure he was allowed to notice such things anymore. He couldn't keep his eyes from following her as she moved around the kitchen, however, pouring the drinks and pulling a box of crackers from a cupboard.

She carried it all through to the den and settled into a leather armchair near the fireplace. He followed and took a seat on the couch. Both made a valiant effort, as they sipped their lemonade, to ignore the weight of the silence between them. Despite her best efforts, the heat wasn't easily disregarded, either.

"Why are you here, Jethro?" she finally asked. He forced himself not to snap at the question, which hadn't been accusatory.

"I don't know." He didn't, though he'd given it a lot of thought in the day since his drink with Ducky.

She stood and moved over to the fireplace, running her hand along the mantle and brushing the imaginary dirt off on her pants. He realized that she was nervous. She began to straighten the objects on the bookshelf along one wall. Her back was to him, and she was braced as if for a blow.

"Jen." She started a little when he said her name and this, along with her posture and her distracted movements, made it both harder and easier to speak. When she turned to him, her eyes were wide and bright green, just as they'd been that morning so long ago he'd first met her. "Sit, please."

"I don't know. I think maybe I'd prefer to stand for this conversation."

"Sit." She did, but on the very edge of the seat. He blew out a breath and gave her a small smile, then fumbled for an opening. "How are you?"

It hadn't been what she expected. "I'm fine. Busy. Not dead. You could have found all that out with a phone call, though."

"Wanted to see you."

"Well, here I am. You've seen me." She tensed to rise and he put a hand on her knee to stop her.

"I'm not sorry about insisting that you take precautions." She didn't get up, but she didn't exactly relax back into the chair, either. "I'm not going to apologize for what happened at the Hay-Adams. You can't just ditch your detail—it puts your life and ours at risk. But I handled it badly. And… I miss you."

It was her turn to sigh heavily as she leaned back. "Well, I guess I know why you have that rule about apologies. You're lousy at them." But her posture gave away her relief at his words. "Jethro, I know you mean well. I really do. And I know that it's not fair to ask you to be totally objective, given your past. I just need to know that you trust me. And that you see me as me, not as some damsel in distress that needs protecting. And not as an old ghost who needs saving. Succeed or fail, I can't absolve you."

He did her the honor of holding her gaze, although they were both saying far too much with their eyes. She placed her hand over his but didn't close it, and he turned his to grip hers.

"I know that, Jen. I do."

"Do you?" she pressed.

"I do now," he amended.

"And when Tobias calls again with some tantalizing tidbit of information?" He shot her a look and she smirked. "You think I didn't know who prompted this whole thing? Please, you boys are much more transparent than you would like to believe."

He filed that particular piece of information away for later. "Then we'll figure out what to do—together."

"Okay." She squeezed his hand.

"Okay?"

"Yeah."

"That's it?"

"Yes, Jethro," she said with teasing patience. "That's it. All I ever wanted was for you to try to work through this with me. We're still the same people we were five minutes or five months ago. We're still going to drive each other crazy when we aren't driving each other crazy. You'll still brood. I'll still snap. In addition to which, I haven't known you nearly long enough to decide if, in the long run, you'll annoy the shit out of me. But I am prepared to let you take me out to dinner as an apology for how lousy your apology was."

"And?" he prompted with a pointed look.

"And to do my best to live with the draconian security measures you and Stanley mandate."

"And?"

"And to consider—_consider_, mind you—occasionally sleeping on that sorry excuse for a fleabag that you call a bed." He'd teased her unmercifully when her back seized up following the first night they spent at his house.

It wasn't, as proclamations of love went, exactly the most traditional or the most poetic. But he thought he could live with it.

"Deal," he affirmed. A smile bloomed over her face, which he knew matched the one on his own. It set her eyes dancing. And suddenly he realized, at differing speeds in different parts of his body, just how long they'd been ignoring the chemistry between them. He stood, pulling her toward him with their joined hands.

She came willingly—met him halfway, really. Their legs tangled, seeking as much contact as possible, while their lips crashed together. Her hands were already under his shirt; one of his freed her hair from the ponytail before raking through it. Their kisses were hungry and tinged with an edge of desperation at the thought of what they'd narrowly avoided. More than once, their teeth met as they struggled for dominance.

He ran his hands up her back as she broke away to skim her tongue along the line of his jaw, sending a spark straight to his groin. She nipped at the soft skin at the hollow of his throat as he grabbed the hem of her sweatshirt and tugged. When it tangled around her arms after he pulled it over her head, he used the chance to pin her trapped hands behind her.

"Jethro," she growled, attempting to wriggle out of the soft restraint.

"Uh uh," he responded. He pulled back slightly, enjoying the chance to look and touch without the distraction of her industrious hands. Her chest was flushed, rising and falling in time with her rapid breathing. Her green eyes were dark, the pupils dilated until only a thin ring of color remained. He reached out and used the back of his hand to map out the valley between her breasts, watching as her eyes fluttered closed at his touch. He traced the scalloped outline of her bra with his fingers, circling around to brush lightly over her nipples.

"Enjoying yourself?" Her voice was ragged.

"Immensely." He lowered his mouth to follow the path of his hands, smiling as she sucked in a breath at the first touch of his tongue. He teased her for a few more minutes, moving his mouth down the plane of her stomach, enjoying the soft sounds she made and the way her hips wriggled as he held her hands in place.

"Swear to god, Jethro, if you don't make a move soon, I'm going to shoot you with your own gun." He grinned against her stomach and released her hands, straightening to kiss her hard on the mouth. She made quick work of the sweatshirt and her bra before divesting him of his shirt and whipping his belt off of his hips. His jeans followed before she dumped him unceremoniously back on the sofa and straddled him.

"Payback?" he enquired with a grin.

"Is a bitch," she confirmed, before she lowered a hand to his arousal and her teeth to his nipple. He yelped and squirmed, feeling her answering smile against his skin. The rasp of her jeans over his mostly naked form and the brush of her bare breasts was making it hard for him to think or even breathe. He let her explore for a few moments but when her hands wandered south, he reached down to still her wrist.

He placed the hand he was gripping on the button of her jeans. "Take 'em off."

She hesitated slightly but responded to the heat in his gaze, moving to stand so she could strip off the rest of her clothing. He snaked out of his own remaining article and pulled her back down. She stretched out along his length, and the heat of her body was amazing. For a brief moment, they were still, but then his arousal twitched and she rolled her hips slightly in response. It was all it took to ratchet up the intensity, and she slid onto him quickly, throwing her head back.

He shifted against the arm of the couch so that he could take one of her breasts in his mouth while his other hand reached between their bodies. Soon, she was bucking against him. He reached up to push the hair from her face so he could watch her expression as she came. And then he cupped her ass while he pushed up to flip them over, driving himself into her and riding her aftershocks to his own climax. She sunk her teeth into his shoulder as he hissed her name against her neck.

When the blood stopped pounding in his ears, he shifted his weight off of her and pulled her against his chest. They lazed for a long time as he lightly traced the curve of her hipbone. Finally she sat up. "I don't know about you, but my back is going to complain soon."

He propped his head on his hand, regarding her seriously. "It looks fine from here."

She smiled. "C'mon. I'll let you share the shower." Her stomach chose that moment to loudly announce its own plans. "And then we'll find some dinner."

"As long as you're not planning to cook," he said, making a horrified face.

"You don't know that I can't!"

"No, but now I've seen the way you think a kitchen is supposed to be used. I don't want any solder in my dinner."

"Fine. We'll order in. You can buy." She pulled her sweatshirt over her head and stood, leaving him to watch the movement of her body as she walked.

"My company isn't payment enough?" He pulled his underwear back on and prepared to follow her.

"If that's your idea of payment, who's going to tip the delivery boy?"

His laughter followed her up the stairs.

* * *

Fin

* * *

Disclaimers in pt. 1

* * *

A/N: Well that, folks, is all she wrote. I do hope you enjoyed it. A heartfelt thanks to everyone who's stuck with me this far and to the NCIS fandom in general: you've all been more welcoming and supportive than I ever could have imagined. An especial thanks (blame?) to elflordsmistress, without whom there would more than likely have been no ending-- and who has excellent taste in literature. Comments, quibbles, suggestions? Send them along.


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